Antibiotic alternatives can promote growth, boost the immune system, and prevent intestinal diseases, thus improving gut health and function in poultry and swine. In this podcast, Drs. Martin Nyachoti and Chengbo Yang discuss with Amy Johnston the results of research they and others have conducted at the Department of Animal Science, University of Manitoba on various antibiotic alternatives. Although those in-feed antibiotic alternatives can help maintain a healthy gut in poultry and swine, the role of good nutritional strategies, and health and husbandry management practices are also discussed.
Antibiotic alternatives can promote growth, boost the immune system, and prevent intestinal diseases, thus improving gut health and function in poultry and swine. In this podcast, Drs. Martin Nyachoti and Chengbo Yang discuss with Amy Johnston the results of research they and others have conducted at the Department of Animal Science, University of Manitoba on various antibiotic alternatives. Although those in-feed antibiotic alternatives can help maintain a healthy gut in poultry and swine, the role of good nutritional strategies, and health and husbandry management practices are also discussed.
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Amy Johnston:Welcome to the Manitoba Agriculture and Food Knowledge Exchange podcast. I'm Amy Johnston, and I'm going to be your moderator for today's podcast. I'm a livestock specialist with Manitoba agriculture and resource development, specializing in poultry production. I also have a background in poultry and swine nutrition today. We're going to be talking about alternatives to antibiotics for swine and poultry gut health. I have two guests with me today for today's podcast. The first guest is Dr. Martin Nyachoti, professor and department head of animal science at the University of Manitoba. Dr. Nyachoti is also the director of the TK Chung Centre for animal science research and his research interests include digestive physiology of pigs, feed ingredient evaluation for mono gastric animals, nutrition, and gut health interactions and nutrition and the environment. Welcome Martin.
Martin Nyachoti:Thank you for having me, Amy.
Amy Johnston:Our second guest is Dr. Chengbo Yang associate professor in nutrition and nutritional biochemistry in non ruminants in the department of animal science at the University of Manitoba. Dr. Yang's research focuses on gut chemo sensing in growth, health, and efficiency of animals, identification of antibiotic alternatives in mono gastric animals, nutrient absorption, and nutrient transporters within the gut identification of bioactive compounds in feed ingredients and functional feed additive development in mono gastric animals. Welcome Chengbo.
Chengbo Yang:Thank you Amy, I'm glad to be here.
Amy Johnston:I'm very excited to be speaking with two experts in the field of mono gastric nutrition today, and share with our listeners some of the great work that has been accomplished at the University of Manitoba. So just to set the stage, I'm going to give our listeners a bit of a background on antibiotic use in livestock and what has led us to seek out alternatives for antibiotics. Antibiotics are anti-microbial products which have been used for over 70 years to treat bacterial infections in both humans and animals. Until recently sub-therapeutic levels of antibiotics were widely used in feed and water for livestock to improve growth and feed efficiency while preventing gut infection. We now know that inappropriate antibiotic use in people, animals and plants can contribute to the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria, reducing the effectiveness of these antibiotics to treat disease and to make global resistance has become global health issue requiring a coordinated multifaceted approach to changes in antibiotic usage. The livestock sector has taken significant steps to reduce antibiotic usage for animals. Canada has introduced regulatory changes for livestock production, which includes a ban on sub-therapeutic use of specific antibiotics, which are medically important for human medicine, as well as increased veterinary oversight on the treatment of disease using antibiotics. This leads us to our discussion today on alternatives to antibiotics for swine and poultry production and what tools producers have to optimize the gut health of their animals. So first I'd like to ask what are the potential gut infections in swine and poultry that can lead to poor health?
Martin Nyachoti:Okay, Amy, let me contribute to that. Uh, the main interest in poultry and pig diseases are mainly caused by bacteria. They include, uh, diseases such as callable cirrhosis, which is caused by e coli infections, salmonellosis and in turn for poultry necrontitis is a major disease that i s caused by clostridium perfringens and this is a m ajor, u h, disease that is economically important in many modern breeds of frogs. In addition, i ntestino, u h, cocosssis causes the parasite cocctheisiss is another severe infection affecting poultry that is exacerbated by the p resence of other diseases and or nutritional imbalances. In general, all these diseases cause substantial economic losses, to the both poultry and swine industries on an annual basis.
Amy Johnston:Okay. So we know that antibiotics have been used at the sub therapeutic level quite successfully in the past to help prevent, uh, many of these bacterial infections. Now that antibiotics are reserved mostly for treatment purposes, what are some of the best practices to optimize gut health?
Chengbo Yang:Yeah. Thank you. Amy. So maintenance to optimize gut health has its own suite of interdependent components: immune system, microbiota, and then nutrition. So which influence the host, the physiology and the metabolism. And that's an aspect that is equally important in the occurrence of the oxidative stress there for good nutrition strategy, health and husbandry management are necessary to control the gut disease, and optimize gut health without using antibiotics. First, let us talk about immune system, the immune system plays an important role in maintaining gut health and functioning in poultry and swine. Ideally, we would like to maintain a robust immune system. That's not all thats stimulated and this can be costed to the animal in terms of maintenance requirements, resulting in reduced, uh, performance. Generally speaking, the poultry and swine industry use the vaccination program to boost and maintain effective immune system. So for the proper vaccination protocol, it's critical, because the pathogens produce toxins that can stimulate the immune system. So strategy to suppress intestinal passages and we are promoting proliferation of the beneficial microbes, can be effective in supporting gut health and the function.
Martin Nyachoti:Well, speaking of the gut microbiota this is like you're a very important it is now considered almost as an additional organ. That is very complex within the host that contains far more genes than t heir host animal itself. The microbes receive t he nutrients from the host and t hey in turn, they contribute essential nutrients to the host. They promote intestinal development, enhance gut integrity, provide competitive exclusion of pathogens and modulate t he r egression and function of the host immune system and sustain immune homeostasis by controlling physiological information. Therefore the focus on gut microbiota is very important in the maintenance of gut health and function.
Amy Johnston:Another aspect that's closely related to immune system stimulation is oxidative stress. Is that not right, Chengbo?
Chengbo Yang:Yes. It's a good question. You have a good point, oxidative stress is the major issue in the poultry and swine production. Cost per highly stressful condition, such as heat stress, antibiotic treatments, weaning and also fast-growing. As a result, excess free radicals, many reactive oxygen species are formed, which attack damaged body cells, including intestinal cells. This impairs the functional cells, creates important energy losses, and they compromise the gut health of animals. Consequently, undermining its full genetic potential. It's also well established that excessive free radicals result in sub optimal growth performance, lower meat quality, and even reduce the reproduction performance. And essential oils such as the salmon and ugeno have anti-oxidant and inflammatory anti-microbial properties. So research has widely investigated some essential oils such as salmon, ugeneo, simoetihide as a n alternative t o antibiotics in the poultry and swine production. Many because of the essential oil's anti-microbial property. The i nference of the l iving microbes on animal h ealth is unreliable, but anti-microbial p roperties should not be the o nly criteria for the selection for alternatives to antibiotics in the poultry and swine production. Polysaccharide also caught e ndotoxin are cell wall components of gram negative bacteria, such as salmonella and e coli that have received much attention due to t he ability to stimulate a low grade inflammation, oxidative stress in chicken and pigs. While the l ikely consequence of this inflammation and the oxidative stress at the intestinal level, its increased intestinal permeability. So also called leaky gut. So leaky gut is associated with impairing the nutrient absorption and increase the diarrhea incidents. So my group has demonstrated that a low dosage of salmon or ugeneo can reduce inflammation, oxidative stress, especially with a polysaccharide and prevented the leaky gut.
Amy Johnston:That's very interesting. So I guess another important aspect is the role of nutrition in maintaining gut health and function. Martin, could you comment on that?
Martin Nyachoti:Yes, sure I can, for sure. There is ample evidence to suggest that diet has a significant influence on gut health. As a consequence, there has been a major focus on dietary strategies to support gut health in poultry and swine. Essentially many of these strategies are similar for both species, also diet provides nutrients that are critical for proper growth and development. Its main impact on gut health is mediated through effects on the gut microbiome and the immune system. This is an important aspect of feed to consider, including feed quality. So things such as feed hygiene, feed formulation strategies, presence of mycotoxins and processing procedures among others. And that's what inclusion of feed additives with potential as alternatives to in feed antibiotics.
Amy Johnston:So Chengbo, how about you speak to the effects of mycotoxins to get us started on this aspect?
Chengbo Yang:Yes, thanks Amy for this question. You know, it's worth mentioning that mycotoxin contamination in feed and the feed ingredient can reduce feed intake and compromise the immune system. So which can make animal more successful to the pathogens, minimize the mycotoxin contamination in feed. It's an important component too, for the antibiotic-free animal production. It was estimated by the food and agriculture organization that approximately 25% of the feed in the world to some extent, is contaminated with mycotoxins. To minimize this loss and improve poultry& swine gut health, mycotoxin in feed ingredient should be routinely evaluated to ensure they are safe and then detoxify with the effective strategies. For the testing mycotoxin, the standard laboratory detection measures are used, however these measures are complicated, time consuming and expensive. Somewhat rapid methods, such as a lettino flow strip technology have made onsite testing possible, but as they are still too expensive. So my group and the other collaborators have developed with the integrated macro fluid platform for rapid and low cost mycotoxin measurement in the feed ingredients. At the same time, we have a developed innovative chemical and the biological approaches to detoxify mycotoxin. So which we indirectly reduce antibiotic use in poultry&swine production and slow the minimized mycotoxin contents in the feed.
Amy Johnston:That's excellent. So I think feed formulation is also very important. Martin, can you talk about that?
Martin Nyachoti:Yeah certainly, it is well known that well formulated diets to meet the nutrient requirements of animals are critical for optimal growth performance. Depending on the age of the animal being fed, it is critical to select feed ingredients carefully, for example, to avoid those that may compromise gut health and function. For example, it is important to formulate young birds and piglett diets in such a way as to maintain a low gut pH. As this is known to impact stomach pH, feed efficiency, feed digestibility, as well as gut development. Also some of the ingredients may contain a high content of fiber, which may be beneficial, but generally for young animals is a problem, because high fiber, especially soluble fiber, can increase digestive viscosity, which decreases digestive passage rate and depresses the digestive and absorptive function of the gut. High viscosity and increased digestive tension, time, facilitate bacterial colonization and activity in the small intestine, which can cause health problems in the gut. In situations like these, use of specific feed enzymes, especially carbohydrates, digesting enzymes such as??? may help mitigate the negative effects of high viscosity, digestive viscosity and improve poultry and swine gut health. Other anti nutritional factors must be considered as well. Things are just trypsin inhibitors in legumanal, uh, feed stuffs and other nutritional strategy that has been explored considerably is the use of low protein amino acid supplemented diet, which has been shown to be quite effective in controlling, uh, diarrhea incidences. Also in some situations, additional nutrients provisions may be required. It's things such as fiscal amino acids in stressful conditions, which lead to stimulation of the immune system in order to be able to support sufficient performance.
Amy Johnston:Okay. So feed processing can also impact that health and function, especially for young animals, correct?
Chengbo Yang:Yes, thanks Amy, that's correct. I want to comment on this as well. So feed process affect feed intake for poultry and swine, and this is already know it can be influence both gut function and growth performance. Many feed process methods are available, but pelleting, heating are the most commonly used methods. Generally speaking feed pelleting improves growth performance compared to mush, has additional benefits, including reduce ingredient segregation, increase digestibility and destruction of the pathogen... pathogenic organism and a slow modification of starch or protein and increase the palatability. Heating is a critical step in activating and new tissue factors such as trypsin inhibitor, right? Just much mentioned in feed ingredients, such as the soybean or soybean meal. Harwell exists in heating may result in destruction of amino acids and the informational oxidation products of lipid and proteins that may adversely affect growth performance and the intense immune function.
Amy Johnston:Okay. So in addition to the good practices that you've just mentioned to optimize gut health, could you please tell us about some of the alternatives to antibiotics in feed, based upon some of the research that you've conducted at the University of Manitoba?
Martin Nyachoti:Yeah, definitely, we here at the University of Manitoba have been at the forefront of doing research in this space. So it elucidates the underlying model of actions, as well as the application of many different potential alternatives for poultry and swine production. Effective alternatives to antibiotic... antibiotic growth promoters are supposed to promote growth, prevents diseases, boost the immune system and improve gut health. The cross over alternatives to land biotic growth promoters that we have worked with include probiotics, prebiotics, organic caro seeds, and plant extract... extracts among others. And maybe Chengbo, you would like to speak to the work that you've done and all that we've done here on probiotics.
Chengbo Yang:Okay. Thank you, Martin. Definitely, I can talk about it, probiotics. Probiotics are beneficial microbes and they can improve gut health and function. So over the years, research in the department of animal science at a University Manitoba, how done extensive research in the development and the application or different probiotics for swine and poultry most recently show that agricultural Agro Food Canada swine cluster 3 project funded about$1.4 million dollars. So my group and our collaborators have an isolated, lower probiotic bacteria from a different sources, such as like soil and also animal feces, so to control inherit infections and improve gut health and performance on piglets. So maybe Martin, you can talk about your work on probiotics and the feed enzymes?
Martin Nyachoti:Yeah, absolutely. Um, other types of additives that we've worked with, uh, prebiotics, which are basically products or components of the feed that are selectively fermented to allow specific changes in terms of the composition and activity of the gut microbiota. In such a way that they are able to confer beneficial effects upon the host animal. Examples of these, uh, products include things such as inurene and fructooligosaccharides under the research. In addition to changing the microbiome composition prebiotic may also provide alternative attachment sites for pathogenic bacteria and therefore prevent the pathogen from causing a disease. In various recent studies, we have shown that through research, for example, supplementation in other pig diets, prevents e coli infections and therefore prevent the occurrence of post weaning diarrhea. Uh, feed enzymes, although we've used them mainly to increase nutrient utilization and therefore animal performance, uh, recent work would suggest that because they are able to break down the complex carbohydrate components in the diet, they are able to release shorter chain fiber products that have prebiotic like effects. So they are able to also favor the proliferation of the beneficial microbes, much rate the gut pH and prevent the attachment of pathogens such as e coli to the gut and therefore reducing the chances of the pathogen from causing diseases and therefore prevents post weaning diarrhea. Also for the work that's done, uh, supplementation with these enzyme hydrolysis products maintains gut health. Several studies have shown that a similar benefits are obtained with poultry as well. And the fiber components that we worked with includes things, common feed ingredients, uh, sources such as canola meal wheat and soybean meal. So Chengbo, you've done a lot of work with other products, including essential oil. You want to talk about that a little bit?
Chengbo Yang:Yeah, sure. Martin, you know that my group has also demonstrated encapsulated cinnamaldehyde and the essential oil work as effectively as a baclofeeson, which is the typical antibiotic used in feed. So use is essential in controlling necrontitis due to parasite and the cross tridium oil product. So this essential oil can also improve the intestinal digestive and the absorptive function and they moderate gut microbiota in broiler chicken. Most importantly, this encapsulated essential oil can also reduce resistance they have to the antimicrobials so the use of essential oil is already as a good option, but the combination with other additives should lead to higher advantages. For example, a combination of organic acid with essential oil holds the most promise as a substitute for antibiotics in feed groups. My group has demonstrated that supplementation, encapsulate the essential oils and organic acid, and show anti-diarrhea effects in the disease challenge with piglets. So the Martin think that you have done a lot of work in the plant extract and can you talk about that?
Martin Nyachoti:Yeah, I can certainly it is known for many, many years, uh, that extracts from medicinal plants may benefit gut health and function in human beings, as well as in livestock. Here at the UofM for example, Dr. Yang's group has demonstrated lutein, which is one of the active ingredients in these medicinal plants can reduce inflammation in muscle cells and that supplementation of lutein or lutein containing plant extracts, as red osier dogwood extract may present a promising approach to controlling white stripping and a good oppressed conditions in both pig and chickens. Further work has shown that prior to chickens fed the plant extracts from Manitoba grown red osier dogwood extracts displayed anti-inflammation and anti-oxidative stress properties with individual cell cultures and had similar growth performance with birds fed diets containing antibiotics, but with a lower instance of white stripping and good press, a lot of work that we've done also here at UofM uh, with the, uh, extracts from red osier dogwood with pigs have clearly shown that these extracts may have potential to prevent mitigation or to mitigate diarrhea diseases in weaned piglets as well. How about you, Amy?
Amy Johnston:This is all very exciting research. Um, I love that you've pulled in some Manitoba based products as well. This is really provided the livestock industry here in Manitoba with fundamental knowledge. Are there other management strategies that you'd like to mention?
Martin Nyachoti:Yeah, I actually, in addition to the type of work that we've described, looking at alternatives to antibiotics, uh, we've done quite a bit of some research, also looking at other aspects that we can put in place to control gut health problems in both poultry and swine. And we can group these mainly into categories. One is obviously having a robust, uh, biosecurity protocol on the farm level, to prevent or control and more as well as people movement so that we can prevent the introduction of disease. And also within the barn itself managing the movement of diseases from one end of the barn to the other. So basic protocols are absolutely important, I think in augmenting the strategies that we've talked about in terms of controlling or ensuring gut health and function. Other aspects that are equally important, are the overall husbandry practices. Making sure that, uh, we as producers, we are providing proper environmental conditions, for example, to the animals. So things are just temperature, relative humidity, and air quality within the barn. Providing clean water for drinking is absolutely important, uh, making sure that the barn is clean and sanitized between batches of animals is absolutely important as a way of breaking the cycle for weaned pigs. For example, making sure that it's once the pigs are weaned or when once they are born, they are actually get access to colostrum, already you set them up in the right path so that once they are weaned, they are much more robust in dealing with, uh, the weaning stress and also making sure that feed intake is, uh, easily achieved by our pigs immediately after weaning is one major step also in helping with the development of the gut. Other aspects that are equally important for poultry and swine is making sure that we use, for example, proper stocking density for the animals to minimize stresses because there is evidence that shows that, um, high stocking intensity for example, was an incidences of necrontitis in poultry. So all of these, uh, husbandry practices, as well as basic protocols, I think they are important in putting together, uh, strategies to optimize gut health and function for poultry and swine. Thank you.
Amy Johnston:So I think the important message here is that swine and poultry producers need to take a multi-pronged approach to optimize health management. I want to sincerely thank you both for sharing your expertise today. And I look forward to continued research in this area from the University of Manitoba to find more information on this topic, please check out the fact sheets on swine and poultry alternatives to antibiotics on the Manitoba Agriculture and Food Knowledge Exchange website. This website, along with this podcast. Thank you so much for listening today and thank you, Martin and Chengbo for highlighting your research. Take care.