Plant toxins may cause death and loss of productivity in farm animals as well as losses that are subtle and not easily noticed by livestock producers. The weed Senna occidentalis (L.) Link, Fabaceae-Caesalpinoideae family (formerly Cassia occidentalis), known as fedegoso or coffee senna is distributed throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. The entire plant is toxic (Dollahite and Henson 1965) with seeds the most toxic; when eaten in large amounts, Senna causes death (Henson etal. 1965; Pierce and O'Hara 1967; Barros et al. 1990). When eaten in small amounts for an extended duration, it may reduce animal productivity (Barbosa-Ferreira 2003). The toxic principle is dianthrone, an anthraquinone derivative (Haraguchi et al. 1996). Dianthrone may cause disruption of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (Cavaliere et al. 1997) leading to death of the organelle, resulting in tissue necrosis in skeletal and cardiac muscles (Herbert et al. 1983; Barros et al. 1990; Cavaliere et al. 1997; Haraguchi et al. 1998), liver, kidneys (Tasaka et al. 2000; Barbosa-Ferreira et al. 2005), and in the central and peripheral nervous system (Barbosa-Ferreira 2003; Barbosa-Ferreira et al. 2005). Despite the clinical and histopathological knowledge about S. occidentalis intoxication, little is known about the effects of this plant when eaten during the perinatal period. Thus, the purpose of this work was to evaluate some behavioral effects on the development of goat kids that were intoxicated byseeds during gestation. Additionally, we sought to refine a previously proposed model for toxicity risk assessment in ruminants.
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