July 14, 2004

Australia's BioDiem Finds Antibiotic Replacement For Chicken Feed
 

Australia's BioDiem has said an RMIT University study in Victoria shows that its synthetic antibiotic replacement (BDM-1) can help avoid antibiotic resistance from passing through the poultry food chain to humans.

CEO Tom Williams said the findings were significant because they showed that replacing the use of antibiotics in poultry feed could be done while delivering extra savings to primary producers involved in the poultry industry in Australia and worldwide.

"BDM-1 produced a level of feed conversion that would equate to a saying of more than five tonnes of feed per growing cycle in a typical 50,000 bird commercial shed" he said.

Australians consume 335 million chickens every year, which amounts to 42kg of chicken each. A number of antibiotics used in animal feed for disease control and growth promotion have been banned in Europe and the UK over concerns about the possible development of resistant strains of human pathogens. The use of antibiotics in feedlots is under review in Australia.