Control of Coccidiosis and Necrotic Enteritis - Greg Mathis
What are the most effective oils for control of coccidiosis and necrotic enteritis?
Very interesting - another issue that also needs to be done, is poultry hygiene between flocks.
We need to eliminate (or, second best, reduce the pressure) of the Coccidia and the spores from Clostridia, by very good cleaning and disinfection. Especially in cracks in floors, etc.
We have tried different kinds of phytochemical ingredients like saponins, tannins, alkaloids, essential oils etc to prevent coccidiosis but unfortunately, we couldn't get consistent results with these ayurvedic products, so majority producers in India are depending on ionophores or other chemical anticoccidials,
In case of necrotic enteritis you have so many opportunities to control through probiotics, acids like butyric acid, antibiotic growth promoters like zinc bacitracin, bacitracin methylene disalycilate etc...
Of course, the best method to prevent them is to give top priority to disinfection with multiple disinfectants, and proper cleaning of sheds in case of deep litter system and rotation and shuttle programmes in anti coccidials drugs which are giving excellent results.
A Natural Choice for Growth Enhancement in Farm Animals - 3 ESSDENDIS
Dear Sir,
Exactly.
It's not so easy task to control NE and coccidiosis in our farm conditions without being using AGPs, Probiotics, Probiotics, Xylanase, good cocci scheduled in rotation/shuttle and better farm management.
Sekhar Basak
Dear Basak, as a matter of fact not all antibiotics should ever be used as growth promotants. There are drugs that work and are safe at the same time, but they are just a few antibiotics that will attend current regulations and will represent no risk to humans.
Examples are BMD, Virginiamycin, Zinc bacitracin and a few others which have been granted with the so-called Maximum Residue Limit (MRL), by demanding authorities such as Japanese Authority of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry, the European Medicine Agency EMA, the FDA, the APVMA from Australia and so on.
Even European Countries that implemented the bannings since the year 1986 have granted MRLs to some drugs, and this is a recognition that these drugs are safe. So why a Country should ban a drug that was recognised as a safe one by themselves?
One reason is the lack of knowledge of most consumers about animal production, which influences politicians. We should not forget that polititians care about their own Country only.
The other reason is the sincere intention of many researchers and decision makers to assure that antibiotics remain effective when required to treat humans.
But there is another very, I repeat, very important reason: Europe, the region where bannings started, does not want more milk, eggs or more meat because they can no longer keep paying subsidies like they did before, for the local producers.
Also, they can´t compete with the costs and quality of exporting animal protein competitors such as Australia, Brazil, USA, Argentina and so on.
Their consumers also don´t care to pay 500% more for animal protein when compared to the costs of other not-so-rich Countries.
Using approved growth promotants represents lower production costs, less carbon emission, less waste in the environment and mainly lower cost for the food that people need to feed their families.
To make short a long story, the purpose of banning such products, that is, to use less antibiotics in animals, has not been successful, instead it has been --and still is-- a gross failure.
Just take a look on the site https://www.danmap.org/ the Danish program that surveys antibiotic usage in humans and animals.
You will see that back in the year 1998, the last year when they allowed antibiotic growth promotants, the Country used 57.300 kg of terapeutic antibiotics (the very same ones used by humans) to treat animals. As time passed, the banning of growth promotants, which also have the ability to prevent animal diseases, increased in such an extent that in the year 2005 this use raised to 125.500 kg and in the year 2010 it had already reached 162.650 kg.
Insted of using drugs with MRL as growth promotants, now they cannot avoid using tetracyclines, penicilins, sulphas and other antibiotics that are important for humans for treating sick animals.
It is obvious that there are options other than Bacitracin, Virginiamycin and BMD. But these options are to be used due to their efficacy and not because approved antibiotic growth promotants are unsafe.
Each Country should implement measures that will be a bennefit for the local people but before anything, one should ask what will be the outcome if the same measures that failed in the rich European Union are taken by other
not-so-reach Countries?
Best regards, Cesar.
Yes, the coccidiosis can be contained by proper disinfection salt solution of 5 % is also very effective if done in empty shed before housing the flock.
Coccidiosis is purely a management challenge. Poultry managers should give serious attention to proper litter management to prevent birds from picking spores of coccidia organisms. Wet litter should be avoided always by packing affected portions after water spillage. Bacillus subtilis enzymes produces butyric acid which has been found to be helpful in the control of coccidiosis and enteritis. In the overall proper pen sanitation must be a matter of priority to all poultry keepers.
Agree with several of these comments so let me put some thoughts about my experience on coccidiosis. Necrotic enteritis would be for another occasion.
Let´s not forget that clean houses don´t allow the chicks to develop early immune response against coccidiosis, instead, this will delay the immune response which will typically play an important role of coccidiosis control when ionophores are used.
I recommend you to refer to the term "new house syndrome" a condition when coccidiosis outbreaks are more severe than outbreaks of old (and contaminated) houses. The downtime between flocks and disinfection is obviously important for any diseases but don´t play an important role in the coccidiosis incidence in a new flock (see M. K. Henken 1994). After all, the oocysts don´t live for a long time in the litter because they are killed by ammonia, bacteria etc (See Reyna et al. Avian Diseases Vol. 27, 1982).
Let´s also remind that different chemical anticoccidials and ionophores should not be put in the same basket. They will typically deliver quite different results, e.g: nicarbazin is not expected to generate widespread resistance (Biology of the Coccidia, by Peter Long /Larry McDougald page 396) but makes birds more sensitive to heat stress. Diclasuril and Robenidin have no problems with heath stress however as "vertical drugs" they generate resistant strains much quicker than nicarbazin or ionophores.
The ionophores are "horizontal anticoccidials" (Mike Eckman) and as such, are not as strong in preventing coccidiosis as the chemical / vertical drugs.
As a result of that, they don´t generate resistance easily. However, they usually allow some degree of lesions in the flocks. One detail that lacks proper investigation is how much stronger is each of the five ionophore drugs against each of the Eimeria species. Some ionophores can be quite strong against, say E. tenella, but weaker against E. acervulina or vice-versa. This means that most of the times when an ionophore is not delivering the expected level of protection, this is not related to resistance, instead, it is because that drug is not the best option for the challenge of that region/company/flock. There are lots of details to be discussed here but for the present time here is my opinion:
1-Disinfection against coccidiosis is not effective. In fact, when we kill bacteria and fungi, we are protecting the coccidia. In laboratory work, we protect coccidia strain with chlorine or potassium dichromate which are two very strong disinfectants.
2-Chemical drugs and ionophores should not be rotated under the same approach. Rotation is intended to avoid resistance but these two classes of drugs have different abilities to generate resistance.
3-Regardless of being monovalent or divalent drugs, each ionophore delivers different and specific degrees of protection against each coccidia species, therefore one important consideration to take into account for a good coccidiosis control is to check which species is more prevalent in a given region and which ionophore provides better efficacy against that species. Regards.
C. A. Lopes DVM
Cesar A. Lopes Well explained and outlined, thanks for sharing your insight and experience.
Cesar A. Lopes
Thanks for contributing to the conversation!
Your last point regarding acidifiers is a good one, and one I'm not sure most people are aware of. The general model of NE as Coccidia lesions + Clostridium infection of the lesions suggests that control of Clostridium can reduce the incidence and severity of NE, even if overall coccidia load is unchanged. While acidification is an older topic in Europe, it is still a relatively new topic in other markets such as the US, where Coccidia and NE are still significant economic problems.
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