Jared Hux, senior marketing manager with Novus International, speaks with The Poultry Site's Sarah Mikesell about Novus' new initiative - Project Horizon at the 2016 World Pork Expo.

Project Horizon is a program to help customers in their transition from conventional to antibiotic-free meat production, said Jared Hux, senior manager, North America Marketing with Novus International.

"Our objective with Project Horizon is to be the expert in managing health through nutrition, addressing heightened health and performance concerns due to the reduction or complete removal of antibiotics," said Mr Hux.

"We want to reduce the need to use antibiotics by overcoming expected production challenges nutritionally and reducing the likelihood there will be a problem from the start."

Making the decision to transition to antibiotic free production comes with many challenges.

Some of the biggest challenges livestock face when antibiotics are removed come through enteric disorders such as necrotic enteritis in poultry and E. coli in nursery piglets. These disorders lead to performance losses, condemnations, mortality and various other concerns for producers that cannot be ignored.

With the most recent research in gut health biomarkers and modelling, industry leading services, and some of the foremost experts in the world on gut health, Novus is well-positioned to provide a solutions-based approach to customers.

"Naturally, gut health challenges rise to the surface, especially in the nursery phase," said Mr Hux. "It's so important for those pigs, and in the chicken world for those chicks, to start healthy. We anticipate that there will be potential mini-challenges in terms of mortality and performance, especially in those early phases of the nursery."