GUT HEAL ▶▶▶TH
Reducing antibiotic use in production
In recent years pressure to reduce on farm antibiotic usage has been mounting, with retailers now monitoring farmers’ performance and antibiotic growth promoters banned in the EU. As we move towards antibiotic reduction in agriculture, it is becoming increasingly important to promote gut health and target disease challenges in other ways.
EMILY MARSHALL, POULTRY COORDINATOR, ALLTECH B
roiler production focuses on obtaining a low feed conversion ratio alongside a high growth rate, while breeders and layers focus on the number of viable hatching eggs per bird or eggs per bird. Whichever
production method is used the intrinsic link between bird quality and performance is gut health. In simple terms a healthy gastrointestinal (GI) system is one which ensures that birds can sustainably digest and absorb the maximum amount of nutrients from their feed and are therefore able to use these nutrients for growth or egg production. Many fac- tors can influence the effectiveness of this process, including a balanced gut microbiota, disease pressure, villi length and surface area, crypt depth, mucosal immunity and the thick- ness of the mucous layer lining the gut. When presented with a disease challenge much of the metabolic energy that could have been put towards growth or egg production will be di- verted to modulating immune response and fighting the in- fection. Maintaining good gut health in the flock will mini- mise disruption to production caused by disease challenges and ensure that the need for antibiotics is lessened. The key to good gut health is microbiome diversity.
Microbiome diversity matters A bird’s microbiome consists of all the micro-organisms found in the GI tract, be they bacteria, fungi or protozoa. These organ- isms interact to form an environment which is unique to that bird, in the same way that the rainforest is its own delicate eco- system. Having greater species diversity present is beneficial for the bird in many ways. The microbiome is made up of
8 ▶ALL ABOUT FEED | Volume 28, No. 1, 2020
‘foreign’ organisms that are recognised by the immune system and which then educate it, thus having an influence on the type and intensity of the bird’s response to those organisms in the future. Having more and a greater variety of micro-organ- isms creates a stronger and more stable immune system, meaning that birds will be able to cope better with disease pressure and stress when it occurs. Improving the microbial di- versity of the gut ensures that there is competition between bacterial species for resources in the bird and thus species that are not in an optimum environment will not be able to grow or replicate as efficiently. Having a wide variety of beneficial or- ganisms present – each competing in a different niche – means that pathogenic bacteria are less likely to be able to flourish. It could be thought of in the same sense as a population of peo- ple in a village where diversity is the number of different occu- pations present. When something like a natural disaster occurs the presence of a larger number of people with different skills means that the village is more capable of rebuilding and sus- taining itself. The more diverse the range of species in the bird’s gut, the more it becomes capable of preventing a disease challenge from becoming a greater threat.
‘Seed, Feed, Weed’ concept Promoting good gut health is paramount to ensuring that
PHOTO: MARK PASVEER
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