Abstract
ABSTRACT It is estimated that Salmonella causes one million illnesses in the United States annually, with 19,000 hospitalizations and 380 deaths. There are various serotypes of this bacterium, and the serotypes Typhimurium and Enteritidis are commonly isolated from outbreaks and, in most cases, present resistance to the antibiotics utilized in clinical medicine. One of the current theories to explain the emergence of bacterial resistance is the continuous use of antibiotics as growth promoters in animal feeds. Despite the lack of evidences that antibiotic growth promoters cause bacterial resistance, the poultry industry has explored strategies to reduce or to eliminate the use of antibiotic growth promoters in the production chain, including the improvement of biosecurity programs, use of vaccines, genetic selection, and the feeding of other additives, such as organic acid blends (OAB) and competitive exclusion (CE) products. This study aimed at evaluating the effect of the continuous dietary supplementation of an OAB and a CE product on the growth performance, pH of the crop and cecal contents, control of Salmonella Enteritidis (SE) in the cecal content, and acute-phase protein serum levels in starter commercial turkeys. The additives promoting similar results as antibiotics under controlled experimental conditions should be further evaluated on commercial farms to allow their utilization under practical conditions. Supplementing commercial turkey diets with the evaluated OAB and CE product may reduce SE load. Serum OVT and AGP levels can be used as effective and fast indicators of infection, including that by SE.
Highlights
By the end of the 1980s, the consumption of poultry meat started to significantly increase due to health concerns by the consumers, who search for foods with lower fat content, and turkey meat is an excellent option in this sense
The samples of the feed supplemented with the competitive exclusion (CE) product contained 107 CFU of lactic acid bacteria/kg
At 7 d of age, poults fed the diet containing organic acid blends (OAB) presented lower body weight (BW) (p=0.031) and BWG (p=0.042) compared with the poults of all other treatments, which corresponded to approximately 16% lower BW (30 g) and 23% lower BW gain (29 g) relative to the Negative Control group
Summary
By the end of the 1980s, the consumption of poultry meat started to significantly increase due to health concerns by the consumers, who search for foods with lower fat content, and turkey meat is an excellent option in this sense. Poultry meat is one main sources of human infections by Salmonella. Among the different serotypes of Salmonella, Enteritidis is one of the most commonly isolated in salmonellosis outbreaks, and it is frequently associated with the consumption of poultry products. According to the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (2014), the incidence of Enteritidis infection was lower in 2013 relative to 2010-2012, but not to 2006-2008. The use of antibiotics in animal feeds as growth promoters is among the many theories to explain the emergence of bacterial resistance (Dibner & Richards, 2005). The poultry industry has developed strategies to reduce the use of antibiotics in meat production, which include improving security programs, the use of vaccines, genetic selection pressure, and feeding additives such as probiotics, organic acid blends
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