Essential Microbes in Poultry Feed
GLOBAL - Live or inactivated, what is the difference?In humans as in chickens, certain bacteria such as Lactobacilli and Bifidobacteria are absolutely essential for intestinal development. These microbes are normally taken up from the environment. The most important factors for microbe uptake by chickens are the hatcheries, the henhouses, and the feed and water taken up.
The increasing efforts in the field of production hygiene are restricting the pathways to uptake of important bacteria ever further. Hatcheries are almost sterile, henhouses are disinfected before the chicks are installed, and the feed is being treated ever more in order to avoid pathogenic germs as far as possible. However, parallel with this the microbes necessary for development of the birds are being increasingly killed off. This now leads to a situation in which poultry is restricted in its growth potential as certain stimuli necessary for development can no longer be provided. This can be observed in particular among parents for broilers, as contrary to their genetics these animals are fed restrictively in order to increase their fertility. All this is done with very high hygiene measures, which leads to a particularly difficult situation regarding the development status of the fowl. Non-specific clinical pictures among the parents are frequent, and in many cases then also lead to losses in the rearing of the parents.