March 17, 2008

Combination of prebiotics and probiotics could be future of poultry industry

Poultry farmers have to look to alternatives of antibiotics to improve poultry productivity in light of rising feed costs and tight global antibiotics limitations, according to Ruben Beltran, technical sales manager for Biomin at the March Poultry Health and Management Meeting on Monday.

Beltran said it is crucial that the poultry industry should find alternatives to keep up feed efficiency without using antibiotics, and the target is to get the chicks to reach market age quickly through improving gut health.

Probiotics is an option, as it prevents pathogens from clinging to the walls of a chick's digestive tract, thus preventing villi erosion, said Beltran, adding that prebiotics will be helpful as they provide nutrients that the good bacteria (probiotics) requires but which the pathogens could not use due to the enzyme make-up.

The proper times to utilise probiotics and prebiotics are around stress periods such as after hatching, feed changes, and vaccinations.

Beltran shared the company's research on probiotics, showing the levels of strain reactions that beneficial microflora in the chick's digestive tract have towards different pathogens, and those that displayed the best protective traits independently to each crucial pathogen were selected.

Beltran said it is crucial that each strain could work independently and in cooperation as well, and that a Texas A&M research showed that a combination of prebiotics and probiotics programs yielded better results than chicks that received no treatment.

However, Beltran warned producers that while the use of probiotics and prebiotics are beneficial, there are no methods that will solve everything.