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Coccidiosis management and control
559 Plays17 days ago
Mark Clements, editor-in-chief, poultry, discusses coccidiosis control with Aldo Rossi, DVM, vice president of innovation and technical services with feed additive company Amlan.
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Transcript
Introduction to Future of Poultry Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Future of Poultry podcast series.
00:00:12
Speaker
I'm today's host, Mark Clements.
Challenges of Imeria in Poultry Production
00:00:15
Speaker
Over 100 years have passed since the Imeria life cycle was first described by a parasitologist at Cambridge University in the UK.
00:00:23
Speaker
Products for its control have been available for decades, yet the parasite continues to be a significant challenge for poultry producers around the world. And according
Insights from Dr. Aldo Rossi on Coccidiosis Management
00:00:32
Speaker
to the US Association of Veterinarians in Broiler Production, it's still the broiler industry's number one disease.
00:00:38
Speaker
Now to talk about what producers can do to minimize the impact on their flocks from coccidiosis, I'm delighted to welcome Dr. Aldo Rossi, VP of Innovation and Technical Services with feed additive company Amlan.
00:00:52
Speaker
Aldo, welcome. Thank you so much for joining the podcast today. Well, hello, Mark. Thank you for inviting me to participate in your podcast. i am excited to be here today to talk about a disease with a long history in the poultry industry as you spoke earlier about. So as you mentioned, I do work for Amlin International, which is a division of Oil Dry Corporation of America, primarily the Amlin division. We develop and provide mineral-based health solutions for the animal industry. Tell
Impact and Monitoring of Coccidiosis
00:01:18
Speaker
me, perhaps we could start with your interest in coccidiosis. How did that come about?
00:01:23
Speaker
Yeah, even after a century of technological advancements in managing chickens and production of new products to control the disease, coccidiosis still remains a disease of significant concern, and that's globally in the broiler industry, poultry industry.
00:01:38
Speaker
The incidence of the obvious clinical diseases has reduced through the years with these advancements. But the subclinical disease is what is still causing most of the economic losses seen by today's industry.
00:01:50
Speaker
The subclinical COXI erodes performance slowly over time. So it's rarely a sudden obvious change, with the exception maybe of if resistance develops to a certain product.
00:02:02
Speaker
So if it's not monitored on a routine basis, it can cause some significant economic loss to a company. So we're going to
House Management Practices for Coccidiosis Prevention
00:02:10
Speaker
look at various aspects of coccidiosis management.
00:02:14
Speaker
Perhaps we could first look at house management and how producers can reduce the impact of Imeria on their flocks through house management. Could you give us an overview of the measures that they should take within the house?
00:02:27
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. mean, this is a big topic, but in brief, Phymeria needs, the coccidiosis species need moisture, food, warmth, and a host to survive and to infect, which obviously all of them can be found inside a chicken house.
00:02:40
Speaker
So managing for coccidiosis is no different than with most other diseases and organisms that we face in the industry. If I were to take a quote from a book called The One Thing, the one thing that needs to be done to successfully control coccidiosis to manage the level of exposure to the parasite.
00:02:57
Speaker
And so when it comes to house management, or even I like to prefer to say husbandry of the chickens, there are a few things to focus on. One is litter quality, some brooding practices, and thirdly, bird density or distribution of birds within a house.
00:03:11
Speaker
And
Effects of Litter Quality on Coccidiosis
00:03:12
Speaker
again, these are the same things that you would focus on for overall health and performance of a flock. So nothing specific just to coxie management, but let me walk through to explain how each one of these could potentially affect and impact coxie.
00:03:24
Speaker
So as mentioned maintaining a good quality litter is key. But as with anything, too much or too little moisture can impact coccidiosis. So let's just start with too little ah moisture.
00:03:35
Speaker
The osis or the imariosis require moisture to sporulate. And once the osis sporulates, that's how it infects the chicken or can infect the chicken. And so if there's a producer that's particularly on new dry shavings, for example, and going on to a cocci vaccine program, for example,
00:03:52
Speaker
and the litter's still too dry, then the osis have much lower spore relation rate. And because of that, the impact is that it takes a longer time for the coxie vaccine to develop, to help the body develop immunity.
00:04:03
Speaker
And so
Traditional and Natural Treatments for Coccidiosis
00:04:04
Speaker
then the bird has that open exposure to potentially having either a harsh ah vaccine reaction or actually have the disease itself. But the same thing as with too little, as I mentioned, too much is not good either.
00:04:17
Speaker
So too much moisture in the litter can lead to potential kicking over of the litter. And the oocysts of the coxie are not being dispersed throughout the layers of the litter as it would in a well-managed, good quality litter.
00:04:30
Speaker
And so these oocysts tend to be sitting on top of the litter where the birds have easy access to them. And this can then lead to overexposure and obviously to the disease. So again, reminding you that one thing in successfully controlling coxie is managing the exposure of the parasite, both too little or too much.
00:04:48
Speaker
So starting off a flock on good quality litter is key. So how do you do that? Will you manage ventilation, managing water lines, and then disbursement of chicks from a brooding area, particularly if you're partial house brooding or using such practices as broodal rings?
00:05:05
Speaker
And when you look at ventilation, the main function is to remove moisture and humidity. And so anytime, particularly during the cold weather seasons, people tend to restrict ventilation to try to save on heating.
00:05:16
Speaker
And I understand because there is a cost to to heat a house. But then obviously then you're leading to having poor quality litter over time. That can then lend to excess of exposure to cocciosis.
00:05:28
Speaker
Water lines. keeping them level, the correct height for the chicks, not just so they have access, but to preventing water from leaking from the water lines, having the correct pressure, and just overall maintenance of the water lines where there is no leaks, adding moisture to the litter.
00:05:43
Speaker
And then as I mentioned with brooding, depending on your brooding practices, but if you have a restricted brooding area within a house, for the first week or so, keeping the birds too long, then they're having overexposure. You have a high concentration of chickens. They're releasing a lot of these osis, and then you have birds picking it up, and then you have overexposure.
00:06:01
Speaker
But also the opposite of moving them too soon, and they're released into an open house that has very little osis, if any, then you don't have enough exposure to develop that immunity, and that can eventually lead to some coxie breaks, especially if you're on a vaccine program and on new litter.
Challenges in Coccidiosis Treatment
00:06:17
Speaker
Could you detail for us the treatments that are available to producers? Yeah, I'll break them down into three traditional products that have been used. That's vaccines, which like with any other vaccine is just triggering a mild infection to build immunity, long-term immunity.
00:06:32
Speaker
There is a group of drugs called ionophores. These are suitable for long-term use and resistance develops slowly over them over time. They develop and help to develop immunity through the leakage, if you want to call it, of osis. So it allows, again, a controlled exposure.
00:06:48
Speaker
Then there's the chemical coccidestats. Most of them tend to be very highly effective in controlling coccidestats. Every strength has a weakness. And then there is the fourth and kind of a newer, in terms of the timetable of the poultry industry, a newer product, natural alternatives.
00:07:03
Speaker
The main ones are being phytogenic compounds. And these are very powerful bioactive compounds derived from plants. They can be derived by either grinding up plants or or plant parts, like the leaves, or extraction of the oils and other other substances from the plant.
00:07:19
Speaker
They offer some wonderful properties like antiparasitic properties. So again, they're useful for coccyx control. But they also have other properties like so antibacterial, some of them do, or anti-inflammatory, or just stimulating the immunity.
00:07:31
Speaker
And there's several products that fall into this arena, and into this group of products. So you mentioned strengths and weaknesses. There are issues related to some of these products, are there not?
00:07:41
Speaker
Absolutely. And I'll give you some brief examples, like with the vaccines. As with most vaccines, They can be sensitive to storage temperature. So if it gets close to freezing, they don't like that. And so they can reduce the the amount of vaccine of the oasis in the vaccine.
00:07:55
Speaker
And then administering the vaccine can also be a challenge. As with most vaccines, when you're doing mass vaccine application is making sure that every chick gets the right dose or a majority of the chicks get the right dose. So then again, you're producing an even challenge and an even immune response to it.
00:08:12
Speaker
Anophores, they're not as strong as chemicals in terms of controlling COXI. So in certain times of the year or certain areas where you have a high COXI challenge, they may need to be used in conjunction in a shuttle program with chemicals.
00:08:25
Speaker
They are classified it as an antibiotic in some regions of the world. So this excludes them from such programs as no antibiotic ever. The chemical coccidists, that's very good at controlling coccidists, they're prone to resistance to develop.
00:08:39
Speaker
And then that requires some rotation of the products or can't be used for long periods of time because of the development of resistance in a certain farm or house or in a company. Also, there has been some consumer concerns about using chemicals in foods.
00:08:55
Speaker
And so some of these products have been eliminated just because of that through time. The
Understanding Imeria's Damage to Poultry
00:08:59
Speaker
natural alternatives, depending on the specific molecule you're looking at, we got to be careful toxicity. So they may have a very narrow window of efficacy.
00:09:08
Speaker
Standardization of the products, It can vary depending on the source and where they're coming from. Certain ones can be very expensive. And again, combining or comparing, I should say, the efficacy of these products versus traditional products is something that is taken into consideration.
00:09:22
Speaker
If we return to Imeria itself, it causes destruction of the epithelial cells in the intestinal tract, leading to inflammation, increased permeability, nutrient malabsorption, and so on.
00:09:36
Speaker
And I think you alluded to this a little earlier, even if there are no outward signs or symptoms, flock performance is still going to suffer. Absolutely. As I mentioned earlier about the subclinical COCSE will impact performance.
00:09:48
Speaker
And the danger of that is that usually it's subtle and can it slowly occur over time. And so time, money, resources are dedicated to managing the disease just for that specific characteristic. You want to make sure that you have a good feel for what the challenge to understand how good your current programs are working.
Coccidiosis Management Programs Overview
00:10:08
Speaker
It's because of this that coccidiosa still remains on top of the list, as you mentioned earlier, on the diseases affecting our industry and why so much effort is put into it. And it's not simply the damage that's caused by emir itself. The resulting lesions can be roots for secondary infections.
00:10:25
Speaker
Exactly. The coccyx, as it goes through its life cycle, is actually causing some cell destruction, some cell damage. And this provides an environment in the intestines that allows certain pathogenic bacteria to flourish, such as clostridium phryngins, which is responsible for necrotic enteritis. And so sometimes with antibiotic-free or no-antibiotic ever type programs, you will see necrotic enteritis being a secondary infection that comes along goes hand-in-hand with coccydiosis.
00:10:50
Speaker
As well as coxie, as you mentioned, is causing some damage to the cells of the gut. That allows leakage. It allows leakage of many things, including these pathogenic bacteria, to go from inside the gut and enter the bloodstream, where then they, of course, go systemic and then start affecting other organs and causing other diseases.
00:11:08
Speaker
So when you explain to us about products that can be used, and obviously we started talking about good house management... But there are limitations. Could you touch on that again for us? And and perhaps you could tell us how shuttle and bio-shuttle programs work.
00:11:23
Speaker
Absolutely. And both those questions kind of go hand in hand. You heard me mention earlier in a conversation about resistance being developed with certain products and the importance of development of immunity as part of the management program management strategy for managing coccidiosis.
00:11:39
Speaker
There is no product or practice that will eradicate coccidiosis. And in reality, you really don't want that to happen. Again, we want to have a controlled exposure. Remember the one thing I'm talking about is just a controlled exposure to coccidiosis. You don't want it to be too much where it can lead to disease, but you also don't want it to be too little of an exposure where no immunity is developed.
00:12:01
Speaker
If you have a very good product that truly were or a practice that eliminated 100% of the sensitive coccy in a house or on a farm, then you only left to the resistance ones, right?
00:12:12
Speaker
And this will require a whole new different method or strategy control, which just complicates your programs and also eliminates some tools in your toolbox that can be used. So that's where
Innovative Products for Coccidiosis Control
00:12:23
Speaker
these different types of programs, as you mentioned, have evolved over the decades in controlling coccidiosis.
00:12:30
Speaker
And so let's just talk about rotation programs to start with. So this is truly a long-term plan, and it involves scheduling switches between drugs and or vaccines, because there's more than one vaccine available out there in the market, to maintain efficacy and to reduce resistance of any one product.
00:12:46
Speaker
And this usually involves... specific products for a block of time, usually months, and then switching to other products for another block of time. And how you determine that is based on the level COXI challenge, knowing the product's strengths and weaknesses, and even more importantly, knowing the historical experience of these products and controlling COXI in a local region or on a specific in a specific company.
00:13:10
Speaker
Shuttle programs, these would be altering the drugs, the anticoxido drugs in different feed stages. So even within a cycle of chickens, you may have one particular product in a starter grower, for example, and then you will switch to another product in the grower or finisher.
00:13:25
Speaker
And again, this is a technique used to combat resistance and to take advantage of individual product strengths to manage the different challenge levels in a grow out cycle. So for example, if you want more control of coccy early on, you may start off with a chemical and then switch to an onophore later.
00:13:41
Speaker
And then the third kind of strategy is bio-shuttle programs. And this is combining a vaccination that's administered in OVO or day old, and then following it up with an anticoccidial use in a later feed stage.
00:13:53
Speaker
And why why would bio-shuttles, why are they even used? Well, as I mentioned earlier, when you have ah chicks placed on new shavings, for example, and you're switching from a ionophore or chemical type program to a vaccine program, and you're on new shavings, you don't have any buildup of coccidiosis for the prior flock to help with exposure.
00:14:14
Speaker
And so to minimize any potential COXI vaccine reaction and to help with the mut and development of immunity, you can use a bio-shuttle program. Also, just like with any other product, COXI vaccines over time can potentially start to lose some efficacy.
00:14:28
Speaker
ah Usually it's very subtle, but to keep that and maintain that as a viable tool, when vaccines are used for a long period of time, you would want maybe be potentially switch to a bio-shuttle for a short period of time, again, to reestablish the efficacy of the product. And then also, you know as I mentioned earlier, it's very important to monitor coccidiosis in the field.
00:14:46
Speaker
And if you start seeing a shift where particularly with a vaccine, you want to see a earlier exposure and a low peak of that exposure, but you start to see that shift to later or potentially even higher oasis peaks, then again, you would like to incorporate a strategy like a bio shuttle program to help you with that.
00:15:04
Speaker
Now, given that ionophores are classed as antibiotics in some markets, surely their use must cause labelling issues in in some parts of the world. Absolutely. In some areas, and as you mentioned, product classifications, you will have that with ionophores where they're considered an antibiotic.
00:15:21
Speaker
But I've seen a slight shift here lately. I've seen it here, especially in the United States, less ah so in other parts of the world, where they still are maintaining a very good storage of antibiotic use. As a veterinarian, I applaud that and encourage that, of course.
00:15:35
Speaker
Some of these companies are going back to using ionophores, which are not of importance to human medicine as some other drugs are and antibiotics are. And so this is allowing them now to bring back a tool into the toolbox to to help maintain a stronger control program and help to improve animal welfare and health overall.
00:15:52
Speaker
And one of the categories that you mentioned earlier, we could call alternative ingredients, for example, phytochemical. These not only interrupt the life cycle of Imeria, but they can benefit the bird in various other ways. For example, stimulating the immune system or boosting the intestinal microbiota. This is an area that Amlan's been working Absolutely. This is our strength. This is where we thrive in. And our R&D team has worked on developing some novel solutions for overall gut health and overall health of an animal, but particularly in managing and successfully managing coccidiosis.
00:16:26
Speaker
Holistically, the product we we have is a natural feed additive alternative with the goal to provide a broader protection. You know, most of these other products I mentioned earlier, like a vaccine or an ionophore chemical, they're truly attacking one aspect of controlling the cocci.
00:16:40
Speaker
But this product that has developed by our team is looking at both controlling coccy, but also the negative impacts of coccy, as we described earlier, with secondary infections and overall intestinal health, as well as coccy's causing some cell damage.
00:16:55
Speaker
And so we want to produce a product that, again, holistically helps to manage this. And so we've done that successfully with a product called Phylox. It's wonderful at affecting each of the three stages of coccy.
00:17:06
Speaker
It helps to bind bacterial toxins and pathogenic bacteria. It provides at ah one of the fourth ingredients. It provides energy source to help the enterocytes with cellular repair and cellular growth as they're being attacked by the seed through their life cycle.
00:17:20
Speaker
And then two phytochemicals, ah totally different modes of action. One of them is very unique to the poultry industry. It's been used in traditional human health, but now we are introducing it to poultry.
Market Availability and Global Costs of Coccidiosis
00:17:32
Speaker
So being derived from natural products, there won't be an issue with resistance or withdrawal periods, labelling issues, i imagine. And is the product designed to be used alone or is it designed to be used as a part of a programme that includes other more established approaches?
00:17:50
Speaker
Yes. Well, first of all, you're correct on the fact that there is no withdrawal and can be used and in no antibiotic ever in NAE type programs. It is effective by itself, but as with the other products, the traditional type products, it can be used either full-time or part of a bio-shuttle or part of a rotation program.
00:18:07
Speaker
And a critical piece for this product in terms of a tool is that it's very effective. We've shown efficacy similar to some of the traditional products. And in addition, it allows you, because of of its efficacy, it is a viable alternative to allow you to give these other traditional products a little longer rest so that they still can be used in programs and be a viable option. And in which markets is Philox currently available? yeah It's currently registered in five countries, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, Chile, and Mexico.
00:18:40
Speaker
But the list is growing as we continue to get interest and show the efficacy of the product that that list will continue to grow. Now, I read somewhere that the global cost of coccidiosis had risen significantly and had it it had reached $13.2 billion in Now, part of this increase was due to higher poultry production, but it was also due in part production moving to limited or no antibiotic use.
00:19:08
Speaker
And you also touched on consumers not liking certain chemicals in their foods. So I can only imagine in this scenario that this figure is going to carry on rising unless producers have access to alternative and proven control methods. Well,
00:19:26
Speaker
Absolutely. If you look over the past 25 years, there has been no new drugs that have been developed specifically for controlling coccidiosis. There has been a few different types of vaccines, but no new chemicals. and There's been some older chemicals that are looking to be brought back to the market after years of being ah out. But actually, we have fewer drugs that are available for us to use. Some of that is being driven by government regulations.
00:19:51
Speaker
Some of that, as you mentioned, and as we talked about earlier, is being managed or controlled by consumers' concerns. with certain products that are used to produce their meat. So as the
Top Tips for Coccidiosis Control
00:20:01
Speaker
list of products becomes shorter, the industry truly is seeking and needs options and alternatives to help manage this disease. Could I ask you, as some closing remarks, but would you be able to give us your top five tips for coccidiosis control?
00:20:16
Speaker
Absolutely. but First on list will be husbandry. as we already talked about. Second would be having a robust monitoring program, and this needs to be a routine type program where you're collecting samples from the field, you're doing necropsies, and then utilizing that data to monitor the current status of the disease, trends over time to help you make better decisions and to improve, make changes to a to current program if needed.
00:20:40
Speaker
Definitely have a plan. Establish a well-defined mitigation plan and strategy. i encourage folks to have at least a 12-month program and a rolling 12-month program at a minimum. Again, utilizing the history, what's been successful, what hasn't, knowledge of the local challenges of COXI that, again, you will get through your monitoring program.
00:20:58
Speaker
Use of alternatives, as we described with our product, and understanding that not all phytochemicals are created equal, even in the same class of phytochemicals. So do your homework, understand the strengths and weaknesses of those products.
00:21:10
Speaker
And the last one I'll say is mine the data. And what I mean by that you know, the industry, in particular poultry industry, has done a fantastic job collecting data and analyzing historical trends.
00:21:22
Speaker
Very good at it. They've it for years. But how do you use that data to look forward and to predict and anticipate issues? As I mentioned earlier, one of the key issues with Cox City is its subtle change to performance.
00:21:34
Speaker
And how do you utilize this data to help make better decisions, look at data differently? And there's some services and tools out there that exist that do this very well.
00:21:44
Speaker
They are able to deal with large, big data management, And so I know the first look at some of these services, you get sticker shock. They can be expensive.
00:21:55
Speaker
But even when you look at a small broiler company, they're spending millions of dollars each year on a COXI type programs or gut health programs. And if you're able to save the erosion performance over time, you will see a return on investment with these these services. You know, I sometimes hear people say, well, I made a change in my COXI program and I saw a significant change that I can associate with that that improved performance.
00:22:18
Speaker
Well, if you have a good program in place, you shouldn't see significant changes in performance. If you do, it's showing you that you left some money on the table. You should have made a change earlier before Performance Hedder wrote it to a point where you can get it back.
00:22:31
Speaker
And so that's where I think the return on investment on some of these services and tools the industry needs to seriously take a closer look at. Aldo,
Closing Remarks and Thank You
00:22:38
Speaker
thank you. And thank you for joining us today and sharing your insight with us.
00:22:43
Speaker
Well, thank you for having me on your podcast. I really enjoyed sharing my thoughts and some viable solutions for a disease that, as we talked about from the very beginning, has a global impact. Thank you. Listeners, thank you for joining the Future of Poultry podcast.
00:22:57
Speaker
Goodbye.