Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Gut instincts: Enhancing poultry health through the microbiome
93 Plays1 year ago
Dr. Alastair Thomas with Anitox discusses the enhancement of poultry health through the microbiome.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:09
Speaker
Hi everyone.
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome to Feed Strategy Podcast.
00:00:13
Speaker
I'm your host, Jackie Remke, Editor-in-Chief of Watts Feed Brands and Feed Strategy Magazine.
00:00:19
Speaker
This edition of Feed Strategy Podcast is brought to you by Anatox, a global leader in pathogen control and feed safety solutions.
Meet Dr. Alistair Thomas: Poultry Microbiome Expert
00:00:28
Speaker
Today we're joined by Dr. Alistair Thomas,
00:00:31
Speaker
Global Head of Poultry Nutrition and Health with Anatox.
00:00:35
Speaker
He's here to examine how optimization of the poultry microbiome leads to better growth performance and reduce feed costs.
00:00:44
Speaker
Hi, Dr. Thomas, how are you today?
00:00:46
Speaker
Very good, Jackie.
00:00:47
Speaker
Thanks.
00:00:47
Speaker
How are you?
00:00:48
Speaker
I'm doing well.
00:00:49
Speaker
Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me.
00:00:52
Speaker
Well, let's get right into it.
00:00:54
Speaker
Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?
Understanding the Poultry Microbiome
00:00:58
Speaker
Sure.
00:01:00
Speaker
Dr. Alistair Thomas, I'm based here in the US, just outside Philadelphia, from the UK originally, but PhD in microbiology.
00:01:09
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.
00:01:27
Speaker
Excellent.
00:01:27
Speaker
Thank you.
00:01:28
Speaker
Now, what are we talking about when we discuss the poultry microbiome and why does that matter in poultry production?
00:01:37
Speaker
Well, you've got to think of the microbiome really as an ecosystem that lives within the animal.
00:01:43
Speaker
It's a population of multiple bacterial species, which really interact with
00:01:52
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.
Methods for Gut Microbiome Optimization
00:02:12
Speaker
What specific methods or practices can poultry producers use to optimize the gut microbiome?
00:02:19
Speaker
I mean, there's a lot of options out there, Jackie, at the moment.
00:02:22
Speaker
I mean, traditionally, antibiotics played a very big role in modulating that microbiome, either through gut promotion.
00:02:30
Speaker
But, you know, you've got to remember antibiotics are also used for managing animal health.
00:02:36
Speaker
They have a positive sustainability message.
00:02:39
Speaker
And also, they're there to help the animal be healthier through its life.
00:02:45
Speaker
But in the absence of some of those tools, there's lots of options, there's.
00:02:50
Speaker
essential oils, there's nutraceuticals, there's probiotics, there's organic acids.
00:02:55
Speaker
And sometimes this can be quite overwhelming for your veterinarians or your nutritionists out in the field.
00:03:03
Speaker
They've got a very small amount of time to think about some of these solutions sometimes.
00:03:08
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
00:03:20
Speaker
There's a lot of suppliers out there or products out there which claim to do everything for the
Custom Solutions and Environmental Impacts
00:03:27
Speaker
gut.
00:03:27
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.
00:03:38
Speaker
So really tailoring your solution to the problem is really beneficial.
00:03:45
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.
00:03:58
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.
00:04:09
Speaker
And so monitoring things like
00:04:11
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
00:04:39
Speaker
Those different things in the bird environment that can influence, you know, pathogen infection of the birds.
00:04:47
Speaker
So things like feed are a major source.
00:04:50
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.
00:05:01
Speaker
impact on the bird through transmission of pathogens.
00:05:04
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.
Early Life Importance in Poultry Growth
00:05:16
Speaker
Recently at Viv Asia, you presented at the Feed Strategy Conference and echoing some of the points that you just made.
00:05:26
Speaker
One interesting point that you made I'd like you to share with the audience
00:05:31
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?
00:05:41
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:05:41
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.
00:05:55
Speaker
It's a very sensitive time for the chick.
00:05:58
Speaker
It's an area of time of high stress.
00:06:02
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.
00:06:15
Speaker
And so it's very susceptible then.
00:06:18
Speaker
in those first seven days to overgrowth of particularly pathogenic bacteria.
00:06:25
Speaker
Species like E. coli particularly take significant advantage in the early chick life.
00:06:30
Speaker
And as the microbiome develops through the life of that bird, it becomes more robust.
00:06:38
Speaker
It becomes more of a core microbiome, more of a core microbiome, which reaches almost a steady state.
00:06:46
Speaker
But you have a lot of
00:06:48
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
00:07:03
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.
Challenges in Replacing Antibiotics
00:07:29
Speaker
How effective is the microbiome and microbiome optimization in reducing antibiotic use?
00:07:36
Speaker
And is it possible that it could ever replace antibiotics altogether?
00:07:44
Speaker
I think that's going to be a big challenge, Jackie.
00:07:46
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.
00:08:11
Speaker
Antibiotics, I still think, for acute disease problems and clinical disease issues are still the best solution.
00:08:19
Speaker
But I think increasingly feed additives of a non-clinical nature have an important role.
00:08:25
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
00:08:38
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.
00:08:48
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.
00:08:58
Speaker
They'll have a antibacterial program of feed additives as well as a
00:09:03
Speaker
anti-cocidial program, which they run separately.
00:09:07
Speaker
And they're a bit more targeted, perhaps, around the time of use.
00:09:11
Speaker
So when the disease burden is probably lower in the summer months,
00:09:19
Speaker
They can really step back from some of the antibiotic products and really start using some of these nutritional programs.
00:09:27
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.
00:09:37
Speaker
And they tend to lean more on the pharmaceutical products then.
00:09:39
Speaker
So there's a rotational strategy.
00:09:41
Speaker
that I think producers have really moved to, which can be effective.
00:09:46
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.
00:10:00
Speaker
What challenges do poultry producers typically face when they're attempting to optimize their flocks microbiome, and how can they overcome these hurdles?
The Complexity of Universal Solutions
00:10:12
Speaker
I think the biggest challenge is not one solution works for every bird.
00:10:17
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.
00:10:35
Speaker
And that means that each individual bird has a slightly different microbiome.
00:10:39
Speaker
There's largely...
00:10:41
Speaker
genus or family level similarities.
00:10:44
Speaker
But as I said, there's a very diverse population, even from one bird in a poultry house to another.
00:10:51
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.
00:11:05
Speaker
And consequently, not all of the solutions can work at the same time.
00:11:10
Speaker
And so the biggest challenge is what to use when.
00:11:14
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?
00:11:22
Speaker
You know, sometimes if you're using these solutions to control the microenvironment in a prophylactic manner,
00:11:29
Speaker
to actually prevent any disease.
00:11:32
Speaker
It's very difficult sometimes to prove a negative if you don't get the disease.
00:11:37
Speaker
Is the product actually working or was the disease challenge not even there?
00:11:41
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
00:11:59
Speaker
with that kind of field testing, you can really see what the challenge is and also that your solution is working.
00:12:05
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.
00:12:16
Speaker
And there's a lot of variability across
00:12:19
Speaker
those different populations.
00:12:21
Speaker
And so minor differences are a big challenge to be picked up in the field sometimes.
00:12:25
Speaker
And that makes it even harder than to see if your solutions are really working at a level that you hope they are.
00:12:34
Speaker
What measurable benefits have you seen in poultry health productivity and sustainability while working to optimize the microbiome?
Benefits of an Improved Microbiome
00:12:44
Speaker
I think I'm a big believer in, you know, that probably 70% at least
00:12:50
Speaker
of the greenhouse gas emissions in poultry come from feed and feed production.
00:12:54
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.
00:13:07
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
00:13:19
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.
00:13:29
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.
00:13:38
Speaker
And overall, that sustainability benefit is by reducing the amount of feed needed to get to that point in the production process.
00:13:46
Speaker
So that has a defined impact on things like greenhouse gas emission.
00:13:50
Speaker
And also, I think another, the most important piece of sustainability there is welfare as well.
00:13:58
Speaker
A healthy gut, a healthy bird, a happy bird will be much more productive and an optimized microbiome
00:14:08
Speaker
will drive some of those welfare indicators.
00:14:11
Speaker
You'll have a healthier bird means less disease, a healthier bird means less litter challenges.
00:14:17
Speaker
So you'll have better quality of litter, which is going to be less impact on the foot pad.
00:14:22
Speaker
It's going to be a better environment for the respiration of the bird as well.
00:14:28
Speaker
And so I think between optimizing the feed volume, I think optimizing
00:14:37
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.
Feed Hygiene and Biosecurity
00:14:47
Speaker
Switching gears a little bit, let's talk about feed safety and biosecurity.
00:14:52
Speaker
Are there any takeaways or questions?
00:14:57
Speaker
Anything you'd like the feed producers to keep in mind when they are thinking of these healthy flocks and feeding the microbiome?
00:15:07
Speaker
I mean, absolutely.
00:15:08
Speaker
I mean, as I mentioned earlier, there's lots of vectors for potentially for pathogens to enter the production chain.
00:15:16
Speaker
And that can be viruses like avian influenza, avian metanumoviruses that can be bacterial challenged.
00:15:24
Speaker
through E. coli, through Clostridium, there's lots of potential in the production process for contamination with pathogens.
00:15:31
Speaker
And feed is certainly a recognized vector, potentially, for pathogens into the production chain.
00:15:38
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.
00:15:50
Speaker
enterobacter ACA and other pathogens on them.
00:15:53
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.
00:16:04
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
00:16:15
Speaker
and vector for disease.
00:16:17
Speaker
And so providing as many hurdles to that pathogen to the bird is a very important step.
00:16:25
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.
00:16:37
Speaker
Excellent.
00:16:38
Speaker
Now, are there any points or anything else that we haven't touched on that you'd like to share?
Focus on Early Chick Days for Better Performance
00:16:45
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.
00:16:57
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.
00:17:05
Speaker
But as I said, to really optimize your production performance, making sure that that
00:17:11
Speaker
Early bird, that's seven days, is the most important in the bird's life.
00:17:15
Speaker
And I think as an industry, we could do better at focusing on that.
00:17:19
Speaker
And that comes from managing the hen as well as managing that early chick.
00:17:23
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.
00:17:31
Speaker
I think that's going to produce a lot of benefits further down the line for both the industry and the birds itself.
Where to Learn More About Anatox
00:17:40
Speaker
If you'd like more information about Anatox and its solutions, please visit www.anatox.com.
00:17:49
Speaker
Thank you again, Dr. Thomas, and thanks to you for tuning in.