Avian Gout

Good work, Authors, avian gout is quite common in broilers and often confused with E.Coli and CRD infections. I suggest that authors also put some notes on differential diagnosis in the same article.

Due to multietiological factors, initial sign/symptoms are misunderstood till damage is occured due to avian Gout.
Good work done.Thanks!!

i read this paper about avian gout carefully. it's really practical paper and suitable for experts and farmers. thanks to authors.

A ration with 30[percent] protein is questionable in present scenario when every nutriionist. The birds infected with Staph. also have the sign of avian gout. lameness due to defficiency of minerals and vitamins also have their effect. The author`s treatment reccomendations is more valuable.

good work,
is there any information about astrovirus and avian gout?

Really informative article. There has been recent case of avian gout in pakistan at arifwala on a layer farm in pulletts in rearing. Problem had the history of nutritional imbalance and dehydration which caused formation of urolithiasis ( Stone formation in kidneys of both sides). It caused heavy mortality due to long time persistance.

Astrovirus or avian nephritis virus mostly effects chicks from Day-1 upto to 4 weeks of age, more commonly in immunosupressed birds. Astrovirus cause degeneration and necrosis of epithielial cells of proximal convoluted tubules of kidney which leads to sever avian gout.

Dear Doctors,

I am happy to read the article about Avian Gout.

But since my opinion you have forgotten to elaborate the Infectious Causes in the article. Please update the details with special emphasis on Infectious Bronchitis.

As nowadays poultry industry is much more integrated & every one is aware of SOP & following the same to get the better productivity so the Gout problem occurred due to Metabolic Disorders & nutritional Parameters are very rare.

In India we face the Avian Gout problem specially in Cobb Broilers & that may be related with some genetical defects which till date not resolved. In many of endemic outbreaks of Gout majority reasons will be related to IB.

On topic of treatment also what you have mentioned are all traditional drugs & that line of treatment will not work on present GOUT outbreaks seen & that will be helpfull only when the causative agents are related to Metabolic disorders or Nutritional matters.

I have tried successfully the drugs below which plays important role to control GOUT mortality.

1) Allopurinol@2 mg/Kg body weight in 24 hrs drinking water.
Mode of Action:Allopurinol is a structural isomer of hypoxanthine (a naturally occurring purine in the body) and is an enzyme inhibitor, inhibiting xanthine oxidase. Xanthine oxidase is responsible for the successive oxidation of hypoxanthine and xanthine resulting in the production of uric acid. In addition to blocking uric acid production, inhibition of xanthine oxidase causes an increase in hypoxanthine and xanthine, which are converted to closely related purine ribotides adenosine and guanosine monophosphates. Increased levels of these ribotides causes feedback inhibition of amidophosphoribosyl transferase, the first and rate-limiting enzyme of purine biosynthesis. Allopurinol therefore decreases both uric acid formation and purine synthesis
(Allopurinol has been marketed in the United States since 1964. Allopurinol is marketed by Prometheus in the United States as Zyloprim, while in other countries it continues to be marketed by GlaxoSmithKline. Other brand names are Allohexal, Allosig, Milurit, Alloril, Progout, and Zyloric. In South Africa, Allopurinol is marketed under the brand name Puricos. It also known as Zyrik 300 in India and Aluron in Venezuela.)

2)Probenecid:@2 mg per kg Body weight in 24 hrs drinking water.
Mode of Action:In the kidneys probenecid is filtered at the glomerulus, secreted in the proximal tubule and reabsorbed in the distal tubule.Probenecid works by interfering with the kidneys organic anion transporter (OAT), which reclaims uric acid from the urine and returns it to the plasma. If probenecid (an organic acid) is present, the OAT binds preferentially to it (instead of to uric acid), preventing re-absorption of the uric acid. Hence, the urine retains more uric acid, lowering uric acid concentration in the plasma. (This is a good example of a medical usage for competition between substrates transported across cell membranes.)

Thanks & regards,

Dr Jaydip Mulik ( M.V.Sc)

thanks for the information
yes mortality starts at 4-5 days with lesions of avian gout, we are using medications as dauritic but still the mortality is high, the problem is more in chicks coming from the same breeder farm, and no lesions in chicks coming from another breederfarm

Thanks for the information about Avian Gout, Really it is a useful article to all the poultry farmers as well as the proffessionals
naresh kumar-

Very Very informative and useful article about avian gout, as summer in India is approaching and helpful for all the poultry professionals to control the chicks mortality,
Treatment line is very good and proved effective in my experience.
Thanks for the effort.

I liked the article about avian gout. Nephrotropic IB is important in this case. There are vaccines which claim releif. But there is no pharmacopeal method to test. This is necessary,so that vaccines have uniform quality.
Dr shivdekar

Good informative article. I agree with Dr Jaydip regarding treatment and the infectious cause. There is defect in maternal immunity in chicks against IB, leads to gout and not in any specific breed. For the treatment using allupurinol, vinegar, acidifiers and manage mental correction in form of providing adequate drinkers, plenty of water and getting result to this treatment. But the information about mode of action of vinegar and acidifiers in avian gout is not given by authors.

I am satisfied with the discussion about avian gout. At present in my area it has become a major problem. I tried allopurinol and got the result only after using it at a dose of 2gm per 10kg body weight. Below this level it is not effective. Along with these I am using Bettel leaf juice to promote water consumption and it is working well. During winter the water consumption normally falls. So I advise all the farmers to use bettel leaf juice right from the beginning.

Recently I have tried a Product named Libac-10 (Manufactured by Vetnee Wallace) @ 50ml per 100birds b.d. along with Vitamin A. Mortality is lmost nil by the 2nd day and gout totally clears by the 4th day.

In some cases of Nephritis Levofloxacin is also used.

Dr. Mridul Kumar Borah
Guwahati