The impact of animal welfare on monogastric productivity, feed intake and nutrition

Implementing new practices that aim at improving animal welfare is no easy task. There are diverse signals from famers and veterinarians that, under the condition of current animal farming, livestock welfare appears endangered, as individual animals and entire flocks or herds show clinical signs of discomfort and inflammation without a clear association to environmental, or individual housing and feeding conditions. For example, the shift to new housing systems affect the energy partitioning of birds, where requirements for maintenance will increase with physical activity (e.g. foraging, behavioural expression). Although the impact on feed intake and performance may not always be substantial, it has also given rise to other concerns that could affect birds, health and productivity, such as ammonia emissions from the manure, risks of bone fractures due to flying and in general higher risks of disease spreading.

Poultry, swine and many other monogastrics are very often facing harsh environmental and hygienic conditions, high stocking rates and periodical stressful periods such as pregnancy and lactation. Animal welfare is particularly crucial throughout these moments, and nutrition plays a key role in assuring it. Optimal gastrointestinal functionality is of utmost importance because it positively influences animal health, performance, environment and welfare by preventing loss in feed efficiency and the use of antibiotics.

Figure 1: Silvafeed® Nutri P, natural growth promoter solution to improve monogastric health.

The restriction of antibiotic use in livestock has become urgent because of the threatening microbial resistance and the global demand for animal products without drug residues. In this context, Silvafeed® bioactive plant extracts can display a wide range of biological activities contributing to improve gut health and represent promising alternatives to AGPs. Several recent reports showed that low concentrations of Silvafeed® Nutri P, the blend specifically developed for monogastrics, improved health status, nutrition and animal performance in poultry, swine and other monogastric farms. Information available to date suggests that the growth promoting action of these plant extracts relies on their anti-microbial, anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory activities to promote the health status of intestinal ecosystems. Based on several large-scale trials in commercial conditions, the inclusion of Silvafeed® Nutri P in the diet of chickens has shown with consistency similar performance compare with AGPs. Moreover, dietary supplementation with Silvafeed® Nutri P has been shown to prevent efficiently the incidence and severity of necrotic enteritis. The recent insights on the effects of plant extracts on caecal microbiota composition of chickens (increasing the ratio of phyla Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes) could help us to better understand the mechanisms underlying the improvement of performance.

Gut health is a vital indicator to measure the performance of production animals, and gut health, basically coincides with animal health. Although a healthy gastrointestinal tract positively influences performance, there is no clear definition for “gut health” that lists all its physiological and functional features, including nutrient digestion and absorption, host metabolism and energy generation, mucus layer development, microbiome balance, barrier function and mucosal immune responses. The gastrointestinal tract is the place where homeostatic regulation takes place, a key process to gain protection from infectious and non-infectious stress. Gut health embraces all these physiological features and the interactions between them, therefore it can be easily understood how the prevention of diseases which impair animal health and welfare is a key factor in permitting the animal to carry out its physiological functions that make them avoid and withstand exogenous and endogenous stressors.

As corroborated by different in vitro and in vivo studies, Silvafeed® plant extracts have shown to be able to reduce the risk of livestock disease and transmission of zoonotic pathogens in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner. All these protective effects, in combination with the benefits exerted on feed intake and animal performance, promote Silvafeed® Nutri P as a solution to most of the issues affecting monogastrics health and welfare.