Mycoplasma, Use of Antibiotics and Alternatives

Yes. That's an interesting topic. How can I control Mycoplasma?

PHONGTHEP MORAWAN mycoplasma freedom is only possible when you have goood underlying biosecurity - this includes farm siteing and isolation - very difficult in the short term (but some gains can be made in the medium term with rearing away from multiage sites.
Live mycoplasma vaccination is the other way of controlling mycoplasma infections. Simply you need the same strategy for MG and MS. No use only vaccinating for MG (especially if you use antibiotics to limit the impact of MS infections). The efficacy of live vaccination is greatly enhanced if you can get replacement stock wthout infections (mycoplasma free).

Chris Morrow, Is this vaccine applicable in broiler meat production especially looking at 5 weeks production cycle.
Can we get the MG vaccine in Nigeria

Ensapuh Veterinary Services limited the vaccine is not used in broilers as
1) it is too expensive
2) the idea is that you vaccinate breeders and produce mycoplasma free broilers - horizontal transmission in broilers between flocks is not that important and most flocks will get through without needing treatment.
3) you should do MG and MS live vaccines
4) Maternal antibody is thought to have no effect in progeny in MG and MS epidemiology. - it has been suggested that maternal antibody may even increase efficiency of vertical transmission.
5) MG and MS free broilers at hatch will not need prophylactic antibiotics for "vaccine reaction" to newcastle vaccination.

Some of these vaccines are used in turkey broilers where the life span is longer as you would vaccinate at 3 weeks and expect protection to be starting at 6 weeks of age. Also this could be useful in long lived broilers (label rouge, yellow chicken, etc).

Good presentation!

Eric Gingerich thank you.
I should emphasis that phasing out mycoplasma antibiotic prophylaxis is at different stages around the world and also varies in countries between table egg production and broiler meat production. So Australia is probably the most advanced from having the mycoplasma vaccines (including MS) over 25 years, The US, Argentina and UK especially poultry meat production are very advanced generally. Countries like Spain are rapidly changing. In Brazil the meat industry is very far ahead of the egg industry.
Exporting poultry meat industries have had to make sure that residues donot get into product - but really the focus is to stop antimicrobial resistance determinants from developing and heading towards human pathogens in the food chain.
The easiest way to speed this along would to be to give a minimum withdrawal time for eggs of two days. This would leave antibiotics to treat sick flocks but stop them from being used for prophylaxis.

The success of mycoplasma vaccination in decreasing antibiotic dependence in chicken industries should be a model for other industries especially the pig industry which in most parts of the world is still very antibiotic dependant.

The US egg industry uses F-strain vaccine extensively and successfully in those complexes that are Mg positive. We have several multi-age complexes that have been able to keep out Mg. Ms is another story. There is only one multi-age commercial complex (it is a large one with 7 million layers) that is both Mg and Ms negative. Luckily in the US, our Ms strains are very, very mild and cause a virtually unnoticed infection. We have not used preventative antibiotic medication in some years now that all antibiotics must have a disease claim to be used. We are down to only being able to use chlortetracycline while hens are in production.

Eric Gingerich your comments about MS are certainly the current view in the USA (in states without turkeys) but I think MS is causing more subtle losses in the US egg industry. F strain and MS in the US avain respiratory background are not causing clinical problems unlike many other places in thre world (TRT, respiratory virus control etc). But sublinically? Certainly F strain in the US was estimated by Carpenter a long time ago to be costing 7 eggs per hen housed when comparing vaccinated flocks to MG flocks that are not challenged with field strain. The average MS strain has the same impact on egg numbers according a review in the OIE in 1996 (Stipkovits and Kempf). But the studies that gave all off us this information were done in commercial layers before 1990 and none of them looked at the FCR of food into eggs. Many farms nowdays can still not measure this FCR but it is the most importantj finacial parameter. People decide what breed to purchase on genetic company claims on FCR. I have not seen an estimate for the losses from MG in egg FCR but continous feeding of birds with tylosin (Ose 1979) showed a 12% improvement in FCR - so another benefit for controlling MG. MSH vaccinated flocks in Europe, Japan, Argentina, and even Ohio (1996 Merial trial) consistently show at least 4% improvement in FCR (more than the claimed differences between breeds). I think future researchers will show that there is a cost of using any live mycoplasma vaccines but it will be less than field strains. (So maybe freedom is the best except for having large populations with no resistance to getting infected and MS has significant potential for airborne transmission).

Everywhere in the world feed is about 70% of the cost of production and therefore 4% better FCR goes straight to the bottom line as 3% less cost of production. Sometimes people say to me that investing in MS vaccination is expensive and the future egg price is unpredictable so they worried about the ROI. Well feed is something you have to purchase every week and it the bill is 4% less you rapidly pay for the cost of the vaccine.

Anyhow live MS vaccines are in the pipeline for North America and although people may not take notice of me just wait until a big vaccine company starts pushing one and the opinion will change - It happened in Europe and Asia when MSD had a live MS vaccine even though they are not supplying the market any more.

Watch this space

Eric Gingerich : I started to see tracheitis with secondary bacterial airsaccultis in broiler breeders infected with MS. Some MS strains in USA are more pathogenic than others. We need to keep our eyes on these strains.

For MS positive PS, we are giving two course of antibiotics then just close observation through routine lab sampling and PM. If there is any severe clinical manifestation seen then again start antibiotics course otherwise go on with out treatment until deplision. It's work.

Very important subject

Good topic, i am very interested.

Want to know more about MS and MG vaccination as an alternative to antibiotics.

http://www.bioproperties.com.au/!Pages/Publications/Documents/DOC-Bulletin-2020-01.pdf

cheers
chris

Hello Dr. Chris Morrow

I did the MG Ts11 vaccination at the Farm Broiler Breeder at 28 days of age.
Before vaccination, I gave prevention MG with Tylmicosin for 5 days.
The distance between treatment and MG Ts11 vaccination It was 5 days and 10 days.
The Amean description of ELISA MG titer, 6 weeks after vaccination is as follows:

A. Distance between administration of Tylmicosin and MG TS11 vaccine for 5 days.

Shed1, Amean 198, Cv% 205, Serum no: 18, Neg: 17, Post: 1,% Post: 6
Shed2, Amean 320, Cv% 98, serum no: 19, Neg: 16, Pos: 3,% Pos: 16
Shed3, Amean 33, Cv% 209, Serum no: 18, Neg: 18, Post: 0,% Post: -
shed4, Amean 82, Cv% 161, Serum no: 18, Neg: 18, Post: 0,% Post: -
shed5, Amean 40, Cv% 200, Serum no: 18, Neg: 18, Post: 0,% Post: -
shed6, Amean 70, Cv% 221, Serum no: 18, Neg: 18, Post: 0,% Post: -

B. The distance between Tylmicosin administration and MG TS11 Vaccination for 9-10 days.

shed7, Amean 691, Cv% 79, Serum no: 19, Neg: 10, Post: 9,% Pos: 47
shed8, Amean 942, Cv% 80, Serum no: 18, Neg: 7, Post: 11,% Pos: 61
shed9, Amean 790, Cv% 59, Serum no: 18, Neg: 10, Post: 8,% Pos : 44
shed10, Amean 767, Cv% 61, Serum no: 18, Neg: 8, Post: 10,% Pos: 44
shed12, Amean 943, Cv% 63, Serum no: 18, Neg: 6, Post: 12, % Pos: 67

there are several questions namely
1. Is the distance between the administration of Tylmicosin and the MG Ts11 vaccination for 5 days too close so that the % positive result is zero.
2. Is the withdrawal time of tylmicosin in the bloodstream for 5 days is not enough, thus killing the MG Ts11 vaccine.
3. Will it be at risk for MG field challenges because the MG TS11 titer is very low
4. Is it necessary to repeat vaccination in cages 1-6 for MG Ts11 or just take serum for the second ELISA test to know development Titer .

Ask for advice and opinions from all experts and experienced for these problems.
Thank you very much.

Strict biosecurity and all-in-all- out is best for Mycoplasma prevention. Antibiotic such as erythromycin, tiamulin. tetracyclines are used to alleviate clinical signs and reduce production losses. Mycoplasma gallisepticum may develop resistance against used antibiotics. Killed vaccines are used to breeder farms against Mycoplasma.