Transcript
Speaker: Hi everyone.
Speaker: Welcome to Feed Strategy Podcast.
Speaker: I'm your host, Jackie Remke, Editor-in-Chief of Watts Feed Brands and Feed Strategy Magazine.
Speaker: This edition of Feed Strategy Podcast is brought to you by Anatox, a global leader in pathogen control and feed safety solutions.
Speaker: Today we're joined by Dr. Alistair Thomas,
Speaker: Global Head of Poultry Nutrition and Health with Anatox.
Speaker: He's here to examine how optimization of the poultry microbiome leads to better growth performance and reduce feed costs.
Speaker: Hi, Dr. Thomas, how are you today?
Speaker: Very good, Jackie.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: How are you?
Speaker: I'm doing well.
Speaker: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me.
Speaker: Well, let's get right into it.
Speaker: Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Dr. Alistair Thomas, I'm based here in the US, just outside Philadelphia, from the UK originally, but PhD in microbiology.
Speaker: And so I've been kind of really serving the poultry industry for the last 15 years and in various kind of sales and technical capacities, but really focusing on disease management and how bacteria can really influence the chicken and its productivity.
Speaker: Excellent.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Now, what are we talking about when we discuss the poultry microbiome and why does that matter in poultry production?
Speaker: Well, you've got to think of the microbiome really as an ecosystem that lives within the animal.
Speaker: It's a population of multiple bacterial species, which really interact with
Speaker: and with the host and themselves to really drive a lot of the gut environment and how the bird reacts to the nutrition that it receives and also the various other factors in the environment that can influence the health and well-being of the animal.
Speaker: What specific methods or practices can poultry producers use to optimize the gut microbiome?
Speaker: I mean, there's a lot of options out there, Jackie, at the moment.
Speaker: I mean, traditionally, antibiotics played a very big role in modulating that microbiome, either through gut promotion.
Speaker: But, you know, you've got to remember antibiotics are also used for managing animal health.
Speaker: They have a positive sustainability message.
Speaker: And also, they're there to help the animal be healthier through its life.
Speaker: But in the absence of some of those tools, there's lots of options, there's.
Speaker: essential oils, there's nutraceuticals, there's probiotics, there's organic acids.
Speaker: And sometimes this can be quite overwhelming for your veterinarians or your nutritionists out in the field.
Speaker: They've got a very small amount of time to think about some of these solutions sometimes.
Speaker: So really helping them better understand what their problem is at a gut level, at a microbiology level, will really then influence how you choose your solutions
Speaker: There's a lot of suppliers out there or products out there which claim to do everything for the gut.
Speaker: And I think I find that in my experience, if you look to tackle a particular specific challenge for the producer, you've got a much better chance of success rate there.
Speaker: So really tailoring your solution to the problem is really beneficial.
Speaker: there's so many different ways that the bird's health can be impacted from its environment, whether that's from the mother, from the hen itself and how she's managed and her general health.
Speaker: It really impacts how the chick is established early on on its growth curve and how it can really best grow to market weight and most efficiently as possible.
Speaker: And so monitoring things like
Speaker: breeder health and your hatchery contamination potentially all will determine you know the success of your your growing bird further on and and once that bird's actually in its environment when it's in that poultry house good management is by far the biggest influencer on the chick's success more so than any additive that you can think of and so that's the fundamental I think good management and a good understanding of
Speaker: Those different things in the bird environment that can influence, you know, pathogen infection of the birds.
Speaker: So things like feed are a major source.
Speaker: Things like water, better biosecurity, as you know, walking in and out of the poultry houses, rodent control, insect control, all of these things can have a major impact.
Speaker: impact on the bird through transmission of pathogens.
Speaker: So really understanding that as really good poultry growers do is really the biggest step that they can take in helping mitigate some of these challenges.
Speaker: Recently at Viv Asia, you presented at the Feed Strategy Conference and echoing some of the points that you just made.
Speaker: One interesting point that you made I'd like you to share with the audience
Speaker: Will you tell us a little bit more about how important the first seven days of the bird's life are and those longer term impacts?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And I think, you know, your poultry growing, your poultry production company actually fundamentally know that, you know, you can make or break the growth of that animal in those first seven days.
Speaker: It's a very sensitive time for the chick.
Speaker: It's an area of time of high stress.
Speaker: And so also that they, you know, as their maternal antibodies reduce and they start developing their own gut immunology, that's very naive at that point in the bird's life and not fully developed.
Speaker: And so it's very susceptible then.
Speaker: in those first seven days to overgrowth of particularly pathogenic bacteria.
Speaker: Species like E. coli particularly take significant advantage in the early chick life.
Speaker: And as the microbiome develops through the life of that bird, it becomes more robust.
Speaker: It becomes more of a core microbiome, more of a core microbiome, which reaches almost a steady state.
Speaker: But you have a lot of
Speaker: in that early stage of the bird's life between these populations of bacteria, which can be encouraged to move in a positive direction, which will, you know, really get the bird on the proper growth curve for success, or you can have it
Speaker: move in a different direction where the growth is impacted through, you know, poorer digestibility, bad maturation of the gut, or just straight pathogen infection can all make sure that that bird is going to be really struggling to get back up to optimal growth rates later in life if you don't get that fundamental seven days really optimized for productivity.
Speaker: How effective is the microbiome and microbiome optimization in reducing antibiotic use?
Speaker: And is it possible that it could ever replace antibiotics altogether?
Speaker: I think that's going to be a big challenge, Jackie.
Speaker: I think the more that we learn about the overall microbiome, almost as an individual organ in the bird's gut, I think the more we understand that role, the better we can optimise, not looking at perhaps the individual species present in the microbiome, but seeing what the holistic population and that impact and how it interacts with the bird.
Speaker: Antibiotics, I still think, for acute disease problems and clinical disease issues are still the best solution.
Speaker: But I think increasingly feed additives of a non-clinical nature have an important role.
Speaker: And you've seen really over the last five to 10 years, certainly as antibiotic growth promoters were initially removed in the US market, for example, there was a lot of
Speaker: challenges around understanding how to combine these nutritional additives and which is the best combination to support that bird in the absence of antibiotics.
Speaker: And I've really seen in the last years, producers have really got a better understanding of which combinations work, when to use them, when not to use them, really.
Speaker: They'll have a antibacterial program of feed additives as well as a
Speaker: anti-cocidial program, which they run separately.
Speaker: And they're a bit more targeted, perhaps, around the time of use.
Speaker: So when the disease burden is probably lower in the summer months,
Speaker: They can really step back from some of the antibiotic products and really start using some of these nutritional programs.
Speaker: But then coming into the winter months when the disease challenge is higher, the colder weather, houses are closing, litter is probably a bit wetter in those months.
Speaker: And they tend to lean more on the pharmaceutical products then.
Speaker: So there's a rotational strategy.
Speaker: that I think producers have really moved to, which can be effective.
Speaker: But ultimately, when the birds have a significant challenge, and I'm sure all the veterinarians out there will agree with me, you have to step in with some antibiotic solutions to really control that disease.
Speaker: What challenges do poultry producers typically face when they're attempting to optimize their flocks microbiome, and how can they overcome these hurdles?
Speaker: I think the biggest challenge is not one solution works for every bird.
Speaker: And because the nature of the different environments that you'll see even in a poultry house, but certainly between poultry houses, between complexes and between producers, you see a tremendous variety of microbiological environments.
Speaker: And that means that each individual bird has a slightly different microbiome.
Speaker: There's largely...
Speaker: genus or family level similarities.
Speaker: But as I said, there's a very diverse population, even from one bird in a poultry house to another.
Speaker: And then using a certain solution to address a certain problem, it makes it even more challenging because that gut microbiota, that fundamental population can significantly differ.
Speaker: And consequently, not all of the solutions can work at the same time.
Speaker: And so the biggest challenge is what to use when.
Speaker: And then probably the other challenge, I get this from producers quite a lot of time, is how do we know it's working?
Speaker: You know, sometimes if you're using these solutions to control the microenvironment in a prophylactic manner,
Speaker: to actually prevent any disease.
Speaker: It's very difficult sometimes to prove a negative if you don't get the disease.
Speaker: Is the product actually working or was the disease challenge not even there?
Speaker: And so I found by really partnering with the producer in the field, taking the right level of sampling, whether that be from the feed, the litter, swabbing the birds directly, sampling the birds directly, it's only when you get down to that microbiological level
Speaker: with that kind of field testing, you can really see what the challenge is and also that your solution is working.
Speaker: Because ultimately, we're talking about variations in performance in which is very difficult to pick up across 150 farms in a poultry complex, for example.
Speaker: And there's a lot of variability across
Speaker: those different populations.
Speaker: And so minor differences are a big challenge to be picked up in the field sometimes.
Speaker: And that makes it even harder than to see if your solutions are really working at a level that you hope they are.
Speaker: What measurable benefits have you seen in poultry health productivity and sustainability while working to optimize the microbiome?
Speaker: I think I'm a big believer in, you know, that probably 70% at least
Speaker: of the greenhouse gas emissions in poultry come from feed and feed production.
Speaker: So any solution you're using in the poultry life cycle that reduces feed usage has a significant impact on the overall sustainability output of production.
Speaker: And so I believe that, you know, if you have a less than optimal microbiome and your bird's gut health or performance is limiting or being, it's not optimal
Speaker: Due to those challenges, by using some of these solutions and treating some of your environments and treating your feed, you have the ability to improve the performance.
Speaker: So ultimately, you're getting the chickens either to market weight earlier or you're getting the chickens to market weight using less feed.
Speaker: And overall, that sustainability benefit is by reducing the amount of feed needed to get to that point in the production process.
Speaker: So that has a defined impact on things like greenhouse gas emission.
Speaker: And also, I think another, the most important piece of sustainability there is welfare as well.
Speaker: A healthy gut, a healthy bird, a happy bird will be much more productive and an optimized microbiome
Speaker: will drive some of those welfare indicators.
Speaker: You'll have a healthier bird means less disease, a healthier bird means less litter challenges.
Speaker: So you'll have better quality of litter, which is going to be less impact on the foot pad.
Speaker: It's going to be a better environment for the respiration of the bird as well.
Speaker: And so I think between optimizing the feed volume, I think optimizing
Speaker: Your use of feed, less feed for more pounds of chicken is a very sustainable practice, as well as managing that welfare and that environment of the bird.
Speaker: Switching gears a little bit, let's talk about feed safety and biosecurity.
Speaker: Are there any takeaways or questions?
Speaker: Anything you'd like the feed producers to keep in mind when they are thinking of these healthy flocks and feeding the microbiome?
Speaker: I mean, absolutely.
Speaker: I mean, as I mentioned earlier, there's lots of vectors for potentially for pathogens to enter the production chain.
Speaker: And that can be viruses like avian influenza, avian metanumoviruses that can be bacterial challenged.
Speaker: through E. coli, through Clostridium, there's lots of potential in the production process for contamination with pathogens.
Speaker: And feed is certainly a recognized vector, potentially, for pathogens into the production chain.
Speaker: We know from research that corn and soy, which are, you know, major components of diets globally in poultry production, can have higher levels of salmonella.
Speaker: enterobacter ACA and other pathogens on them.
Speaker: And so being mindful of your feed hygiene is really helping you control one of those really important potential vectors for disease in the bird.
Speaker: And so I know there's various other elements of good practice and good welfare and good management that can contribute, but certainly feed is a recognized
Speaker: and vector for disease.
Speaker: And so providing as many hurdles to that pathogen to the bird is a very important step.
Speaker: As part of your critical control plans, I really think feed needs to be addressed, managed to minimize the impact that any of these pathogens can have on that optimal growth of your bird.
Speaker: Excellent.
Speaker: Now, are there any points or anything else that we haven't touched on that you'd like to share?
Speaker: I think one thing I'd like to reinforce and touch on in the industry, certainly from a supplier standpoint and for us that provide solutions out there to the poultry producers, let's focus more on that early bird.
Speaker: I believe, you know, there's lots of opportunities in treatments later in the age of the bird, in the grower diets and in the finisher diets.
Speaker: But as I said, to really optimize your production performance, making sure that that
Speaker: Early bird, that's seven days, is the most important in the bird's life.
Speaker: And I think as an industry, we could do better at focusing on that.
Speaker: And that comes from managing the hen as well as managing that early chick.
Speaker: And I think a bit more focus in the research around that area and how we really can help producers optimize those early days.
Speaker: I think that's going to produce a lot of benefits further down the line for both the industry and the birds itself.
Speaker: If you'd like more information about Anatox and its solutions, please visit www.anatox.com.
Speaker: Thank you again, Dr. Thomas, and thanks to you for tuning in.
