The paper is titled "In ovo feeding dose response of probiotic Clostridium species on hatch performance and hatchling quality of broilers."

"Due to current public concern about antimicrobial resistance, the use of direct fed microbials to manage enteric health is becoming a feasible practice, especially if administered early in a broiler’s productive life," said Prof Ferket, a William Neal Reynolds Professor of Nutrition and Biotechnology in the Prestage Department of Poultry Science.

"Butyric acid-producing, spore-forming clostridia have been demonstrated to promote improved growth performance and gut health. We believe that in-ovo feeding of this clostridia consortium in late-term embryos is a novel and cost-effective application of probiotics in broiler chickens."

White Dog Labs was established in 2012 on the foundation of biotechnology and bioprocess development.

It has invented a proprietary process, Protocol B, for the isolation, selection and cultivation of microbiome-derived Clostridia.

For this series of studies, the company prepared three clostridial consortia: one containing only known species which produce butyric acid, a second butyric acid-producing consortia containing only acetogenic Clostridiales, and a third containing both acetogenic and non-acetogenic Clostridiales. Acetogenic microbes are unique because they can consume CO₂.

"The objective of this study was to examine the dose response of these consortia delivered by in ovo feeding on hatch performance," said Dr Abousaad. "The libraries were injected into the amnion of fertile eggs at ~17 days of incubation with 100 µL of either saline (9 saline), as a control, or different microbe dosages, from 10⁰ to 10⁸ microbes per egg."

Dr Abousaad added, "The non-acetogen and the mixed consortia adversely affected hatch rate due to egg explosion and embryo death, which was attributed to excessive gas production, while the acetogen-only library significantly improved the hatchability rate by 8-9 percent, compared to the control.

"Additionally, in ovo feeding of the acetogen-only library improved the hatch window with all eggs hatching by exactly 21 days. The saline control and other clostridial libraries needed an additional 8 hours or more for all eggs to hatch. Importantly, no significant differences in hatchling quality parameters were observed."

"We are very pleased with this initial, novel test of BioTyton, our new probiotics product," said Bryan Tracy, WDL’s CEO.

"As our current product, ProTyton, a premium protein ingredient for aquaculture, moves into production at the Midwest Renewable Energy (MRE) ethanol plant in Nebraska, we are able to apply our clostridia core competency to probiotics and synbiotics."

He added, "We are looking forward to the next phase of the evaluation, demonstrating the growth and health benefits which have previously been demonstrated via conventional clostridial applications."