HEAL ▶▶▶TH


Transition to antibiotic free production


Recent years have seen an explosion in the availability of “free-from” foods for consumers increasingly concerned about the traceability and healthiness of food. After pioneering in the area cage-free eggs the industry now needs to rise to the challenge again as antibiotic free chicken looks set to become a staple of supermarkets and restaurants.


BY LEO TOWNSEND, ANITOX A


s well as consumer demand, governments are keen for the poultry industry to reduce antibiotic use – particularly when the antibiotics are impor- tant for human healthcare too. The US FDA al-


ready has a strategy in place to reduce the use of antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) in poultry production. Likewise, the EU restricted the use AGPs over a decade ago but with


With feed, you need to consider what happens in the feed mill but also how it is stored and transported, as well as thorough cleaning of feeder pans in between flocks.


20 ▶ POULTRY WORLD | No. 2, 2018


limited success at reducing the total quantity of antibiotics used in poultry production. Studies show that there has been increased use of therapeutic antibiotics in some countries since the ban. To date, there are no universal standards for antibiotic free production but many poultry supply chains have their own protocols in place. These range from not using antibiotics important to human health to no antibiotics at all for the broiler or the parent bird. Although the specific criteria for antibiotic-free chicken are not set, the direction of travel is clear so poultry producers need to prepare for a system which uses fewer antibiotics, especially AGPs, according to Dr Kurt Richardson of Anitox. “Shifting to antibiotic free production is going to be a chal- lenge but I think we already have most of the tools we need to do it successfully,” he says. “But we need to change the way we think about rearing birds. There is no like-for-like re- placement for AGPs, instead we have to look at what they do and achieve the same result in different ways. In essence, AGPs are tools to manage gut health – they prevent coloni- sation by pathogenic bacteria and modify the intestinal microflora ecosystem in a beneficial way.”


PHOTO: ANITOX


PHOTO: TIM SCRIVENER


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