Optimizing Performance by Managing Toxicity

Feed constitutes one of the major costs incurred upon rearing a successful poultry farming. It is usually observed that up to 80% of the total rearing cost in Poultry is constituted by the Feed and thus it becomes imperative to have the best quality feed in order to attain the maximum performance potential of birds.

The Feed which is made up of various raw materials can be the first source of infection to the birds. The external contamination of Feed through various means which include the quality of the raw materials used and the ways by which these raw materials are stored and processed to form the final product plays an important role in determining the effects which the feed can bring on the productive performance of the birds. It is however operationally not possible to have foolproof arrangements to ensure there are no contaminants (Physical or Biological) in the feed. Some way or the other, maybe at the feed manufacturing level or at the farm level, the feed may get partially contaminated leading to impaired health and productivity in birds.

One of the major challenges which is faced while manufacturing feed and during storage is to have them safeguarded from the toxins which are produced by the fungi and are thus called as Mycotoxins. These secondary metabolites produced by various fungi become one of the primary deterrents for the birds to reach their productive potential. This gets further aggravated by other contaminants which may get attached with the feed and reach the body of birds further damaging their productive potential. Primarily it is known that the Mycotoxins of various kinds impact the intestinal lining of the birds followed by their effect on the secondary organs among which Liver is the most important and the critical one where these toxins undergo metabolism. This is followed by the effect of these toxins on the immune organs of the birds specially the Bursa of Fabricus and therefore impacts the immune potency of birds. The overall effect of these toxins and Xenobiotics thus has a multi fold impact on the birds which compromises the performance and the economics of the farm.

It is well established that most of the toxins after reaching the intestines damage the Intestinal cells and go to the liver to further get metabolised into different compounds. There are instances where some of the toxins in their natural form are not as harmful as their metabolites which are formed in the liver while undergoing metabolism. There are various studies which show that Aflatoxins like AFB1 as such are not as dangerous to the birds as are their metabolites which are formed in the liver. During the metabolism of AFBI, it gets converted into AFM1 form and in this conversion, there are some epoxides which are formed in the hepatic cells. It is these epoxides which cause more threat to the hepatic cells then the original toxins which had reached the liver cells. Thus, it is of utmost importance to ensure first that the least amount of toxins go inside the body and if some reach into the body, the metabolism of these toxins does not cause damaging. Similarly, it is also seen that there are always some Low-grade inflammatory reactions which continue to take place in the intestinal cells of the birds due to variety of toxins and other contaminants reaching these cells and thus effect the integrity of these intestinal cells leading to improper digestion, absorption, and assimilation of the nutrients. Additionally, it also leads to the loss of some energy in the birds as the birds invoke reactions and counter reactions which drain some energy of the birds.

The Intestinal Cells and the Hepatic Cells are the most important cells in the body of the birds which determine the profitability of the flock. It is these two organ systems which get the first-hand interaction with the external contaminants and the toxins. Therefore, it become extremely pertinent to ensure safeguarding the overall health and well being of these two systems to ensure optimised productive performance and profitable rearing.

There are various approaches which have been deployed to counter the aforementioned challenges which the birds face and among the most common one which is deployed is the use of Toxin Binders in the feed. Although the use of Toxin binders is the most important and the first step in managing these challenges in the birds. However again there are some challenges which get flared up in birds despite the use of these compounds. It is primarily seen due to the reason that the binders have the capacity to bind to the various known toxins and up to some specific saturation levels while in nature there are many more unknown toxins as well for which the binders are not completely able to shield the birds from their effect. This leads to the situation where these unknown and some amount of the known toxins reach the intestinal cells followed by Hepatic cells and the other organ systems. The overall effect is the compromised intestinal health, liver health, immunosuppression and therefore reduction in the productive performance of the birds.

With time various new approaches were designed to manage this problem in birds by bringing more novelty in the binders through reinforced binding potential, capacity to bind beyond the known toxins and so on. Further other new ways of incorporating compounds which reduce the potency of these toxins by transforming them into less active forms has also been tried with an appreciable success. However, the problem of toxicity has still been prevalent and the simple reasons for this has been the evolution of new species of fungi and observing the theory of survival of the fittest by these species. Various new varieties of toxins and other contaminants keep flaring up which continue to counter the ways which are deployed to manage them. With this flaring up of new toxins and contaminants, it becomes essential to have a multi-pronged approach to manage the toxicity in birds. The approach which helps the maximum binding of toxins, have transformational capacity to convert them into less toxic metabolites and additionally has the potential to strengthen the functionality of the hepatic and intestinal cells along with reinforcing the immune capacity of birds.

One such approach in manging toxicity in birds has been adopted by Rossari Biotech Limited through its multipronged strategy to counter the challenges which are posed to the various organ systems of the bird. In this approach, Rossari Biotech Limited has designed a solution by the name of Rossbind Plus which has a broad binding capacity along with its other compounds which help strengthen and safeguard the hepatic cells of the birds. The effects have been bolstered up by combining a holistic approach of adding a solution named Suproliv which further strengthens the hepatic cells and does conditioning of the intestinal cells. With this multipronged approach of using Rossbind Plus and Suproliv (Based on the active compounds incorporated in both the solutions), most of the aspects of managing toxicity are taken care of where broad spectrum binders help maximum binding of toxins, nutritional support and strengthening of hepatic and intestinal cells help better functioning of both the organs thus enabling optimised digestion, absorption and assimilation of the nutrients followed by transformation of certain toxins which cross the barrier of binder to reach the intestinal cells thereby reducing the effects to minimal. The various field trials conducted with Rossbind plus and Suproliv both in combination and alone have further backed this strategy of multipronged approach of managing toxicity in birds. In many field trials, self-induced toxicity challenges were given to the birds at higher than LD₅₀ dose of the various toxins and it was observed that there was a significant improvement seen in groups where this strategy was put into application.

It can be concluded that the challenges of toxicity will continue to persist in poultry due to the continuous evolution of various fungal toxins and other biological contaminants and not a single solution or strategy can be a foolproof to safeguard birds from it. It is therefore of vital importance that new ways, approaches, and strategies be designed based on the field experiences, research data etc to help establish designing and improvisation of solution and strategies which ensure optimised performance by managing toxicity.