Producing poultry while saving antibiotics for human use

For affordable chicken meat with a reduced environmental footprint, CALS Professor develops technology to help manage poultry flocks with reduced antibiotic use.

The poultry industry continues to reduce antibiotic use to prevent antibiotic resistance in humans and animals – but this reduction can come at the cost of poultry health and performance. Developing feed additives to replace antibiotics is one approach, but understanding and improving the environment where poultry are housed is another strategy of managing infection rates. Translating both approaches into something poultry producers can employ to maintain efficiency is the aim of Mike Persia’s Hatch Multistate project.

Persia is the John W. Hancock professor and extension specialist in Poultry Nutrition and Management in the School of Animal Sciences. In recent months his expertise has been tapped to educate poultry producers across the state on how improved biosecurity could prevent local flocks from being exposed to avian flu.

Now with his Hatch Multistate project, Persia evaluates the efficacy of feed additives as antibiotic alternatives while exploring how moisture levels in poultry bedding, commonly called litter in the industry, can impact microbial exposure and affect poultry health. In experiments his team conducted, antibiotic replacements added to feed increased chicken growth and intestinal health in the absence of growth-promoting antibiotics. Additionally, experiments exploring the effects of litter moisture on bird production were used to build a model to predict litter moisture in real-time using a hand-held infrared imaging unit. That puts new tools into the hands of poultry producers who can now monitor moisture levels on their own farms, giving them a chance to react and better manage their poultry flocks.