David Bravo

IntroductionTo prevent the risk of developing pathogens resistant to antibiotics and also to satisfy consumer demand for a food chain free of drugs, the use of in-feed antibiotics in the European Union was banned in January 2006, and this policy is being considered in other parts of the world. Consequently, the poultry industry seeks an alternative for antibiotics as growth promoter ...

The gastrointestinal tract is confronted with a cornucopia of diverse chemicals, pathogens and physicochemical states that it must analyze and react to appropriately to optimize nutrition and to defend against harm. It presents the largest and most vulnerable surface to the outside world. Integrated responses to these challenges require the gut to sense its environment. This it ...

Necrotic enteritis (NE) and avian coccidiosis are among the most important infectious diseases in commercial poultry production, both resulting in field outbreaks with substantial mortality(1–4). The aetiological agent of NE is Clostridium perfringens, a Gram-positive, anaerobic, spore-forming bacterium that is transmitted by the faecal–oral route as well as through contaminated feed, ...

BackgroundIn view of rising concerns on the extensive use of antibiotics in animal production, there is an increasing interest for developing alternative disease control strategy to enhance animal health and to reduce the use of antimicrobials. One promising new possibility to achieve this goal is the use of natural foods and herbal products to enhance feed efficiency, gut health, and innate immun ...

New research findings in gut physiology: implications for animal feedingRecently, a paper was published in the scientific journal Nature Reviews1 entitled “The gut as a sensory organ.” As the title suggests, scientists are now considering the gut literally as an intelligent sensory organ, with the ability to “sense” its environment and react to it.  What does this ...

IntroductionThe content of the intestine is rich in chemicals and microorganisms. This complex ‘soup’ is an external milieu, separated from the body’s internal milieu by only a single layer of epithelial cells for most of the length of the gastrointestinal tract, the oesophagus alone having a multilayered epithelial barrier. The human small intestine presents a surface membrane a ...

The increasing need for animal-based food products is not a new challenge for Animal Producers, since during the last 30 years the human population has doubled. However, the current issues associated with this increase in demand are slightly more complicated. Specifically, the area of Animal Nutrition has been affected dramatically during the past 15 years by the ban on the usage of antibiotics gr ...

Introduction Studies have demonstrated that a metabolizable energy (ME) value of 50 kcal/kg could be attributed to 100 ppm of an encapsulated blend of cinnamaldehyde, carvacrol and capsicum oleoresin (XT, XTRACT® 6930 – Pancosma). In addition, a previous work showed that XT led to greater performance compared to a standard supplementation of bacitracine in broilers. Therefore the object ...