Article
www.pixie.co.in
Gut Health Management Strategies In Antibiotic Free Poultry Production Vaibhav Kr. Singh, Pankaj Kr. Shukla, Amitav Bhattacharyya and Ankit Sharma Department of Poultry Science, DUVASU, Mathura, Uttar Pradesh 281001 India
The global poultry production continues to grow especially in Asia. Poultry sector is presently confronted with new array of challenges such as global food security, climate change, emerging infectious diseases, regulatory ban of antimicrobials, high-intensity production conditions and waste management. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that superbugs are reaching dangerous levels worldwide, a problem that is exacerbated by the overuse and abuse of antibiotics. The WHO has specifically called on individuals, healthcare professionals, policy makers and agricultural industries to make changes to prevent the spread of antibiotic resistance. Antimicrobial resistance is a complex, multifaceted and urgent global health problem. There is an increasing concern about the emergence of multidrug resistant superbugs. This urgent threat requires implementation of a multifaceted strategy that has been articulated in the past few years. It is well established that antimicrobials in animal feed enhance feed efficiency, promote animal growth and improve the quality of animal products. But, resistance development in bacterial populations and hence consumer demand for products free of antimicrobial residues have prompted efforts to develop alternatives that can replace antimicrobials without causing loss of productivity or product quality (Morgan, 2017). The biggest stumbling block in antibiotic free (ABF) system is preventing necrotic enteritis (NE) without use of antibiotics in feed m e d i c a t i o n . N o w a d a y s t h e re i s widespread interest in using in-feed nutraceuticals such as prebiotics, 20
probiotics, organic acids and plant extracts as alternatives to antimicrobials to create a healthy gut and to prevent and treat enteric infections. Elements of gut health Maintenance of optimal intestinal function (gut health) is dependent on three interdependent components: (1) immune system, (2) microbiota and (3) nutrition, which influence host physiology and metabolism. Challenges associated with antibiotic free (ABF) poultry production Health challenges and Economic challenges One of the key barriers to complete withdrawal from antimicrobial use in poultry is necrotic enteritis (NE). Clinical NE leads to sudden death, with mortality rates of up to 50% (Lee et al., 2011), but the subclinical form of the disease is more financially devastating because the lack of obvious symptoms means that there is delayed commencement of effective treatment, resulting in substantial loss in flock performance and reduced feed efficiency. In an effort to minimize the loss of performance caused by removing antimicrobials, many producers may increase the floor-space allowance per bird, for example, from 0.23m2/bird to 0.27m2/bird to provide enhanced comfort to the birds. Thus, more poultry houses will be required and birds will need to be raised for longer, which will reduce the number of placements per year. The demand for additional feed resources and more drinking water will cause increase price for rearing.
Novel strategies to control gut health without antibiotic supplements Substances that are used as alternatives to antimicrobials are generally unable to reduce microbial load and thus do not promote growth by mechanisms similar to those by which antimicrobials increase growth. But they promote GI tract health by mechanisms such as altering the pH, maintaining protective mucins (Brownlee et al., 2003), selecting for beneficial organisms and against harmful pathogens, enhancing fermentation acids (Khan and Iqbal, 2016), improving nutrient uptake and increasing humoral immune response (Sugiharto, 2016). Nutritional strategies Diet composition Different bacterial species have different substrate preferences and growth requirements; thus, it is the chemical composition of the digesta and digestibility of feed components that determine the composition of the gut microbial community. Apajalahti et al. (2004) who observed that broilers fed corn and sorghum-based diets had increased numbers of Enterococcus, broilers fed barley-based diets had increased numbers of Lactobacillus, broilers fed oat-based diet had enhanced growth of Escherichia and Lactococcus and broilers fed rye-based diets had increased the number of Streptococcus. Bacterial proliferation can be partly prevented by formulating diets based on digestible amino acids. A potential strategy is to feed low-protein diets supplemented with synthetic amino acids (Hilliar et al., 2017). Poultry Planner | Vol. 22 | No.08 | October - 2020
