Background
Antibiotic Growth Promotors (AGPs) are a group of feed additives widely used to improve animal health and performance. Mode of action is actually still an area of debate, but it is clear we have moved away from a simple model of reduction of pathogens / reduction of microbiota competition with the host animal to one where reduction of inflammation and modulation of immune res...
Hossam Munir Khereba Thanks for your comment Mr. Khereba. I agree that litter quality is important. However I see litter quality as a consequence of activities we do as poultry managers, rather than a solution in itself. Indeed, Litter quality is actually an excellent indicator that things are good...or not so good!
Effective water management,optimisation of feed quality using diffrent non antibiotic feed additives, litter management and biosecurity are the key factors to improve gut immunity and gut related problems.
My suggestion is screening the particular microbiota of each production complex and correlate higher and lower performance with the patterns. Doing it with feaces could help to understand why the microorganisms are there. Feaces is part of our production and we do not go deep in understanding the most inoculation power in the whole system.
Luis Fernando Vergamini Luna. Thank you for the comment. I think in future this might be a reality. Currently, though, our understanding of microbiota dynamics is still poor; and in fact we know that it varies considerably even between individual birds in the same house. We therefore are forced into broad management decisions and strategies, like the ones I presented. MPS
I think you are right in your approach, because it is the way I made it and still work it in my flocks. Even tough I don’t need to have them removed, I don’t use AGP in my flocks for 3 years now. Observation of droppings/litter quality and ventilation management are very important too.
Frederic Paris Dear Mr. Paris, thank you for the comment. Indeed, I wrote this short piece to start conversations and debate! I am pleased you are successful with no AGPs; may this continue throughout 2021! MPS
