The Impact of Diets supplemented with Medium Chain Fatty Acids on the Performance of Broilers Challenged with Clostridium perfringensIr. Manu De Laet – Product Manager Poultry @ Nuscience

Necrotic Enteritis (NE):

- Necrotic enteritis is an acute enterotoxemia

- Causative agent is a gram-positive, anaerobic bacteria: Clostridium perfringens

- Birds predisposed to NE when high levels of animal byproducts, wheat, barley, oats, or rye in diet

- Clinical illness: a severe depression followed by a sudden increase in flock mortality

- NE usually persists in a flock for 5 – 10 days, and mortality is 2% – 50%

1. Introduction

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1. Introduction

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Necrotic Enteritis Control:• Traditionally been accomplished by adding antibiotics in the feed:

– Virginiamycin (20 g/ton feed)– Bacitracin (50 g/ton feed)– Lincomycin (2 g/ton feed)– Ionophore-class anticoccidials

• Treatment for NE is most commonly administered in the drinking water

• Antibiotic free feeds ⇒ result in increased use of coccidiosis vaccines ⇒ resulting in early circulation of mixed Eimeria infections ⇒ increases the incidence of NE

Slide 4Source: Review on antimicrobial resistance

Deaths attributable to antimicrobial resistance every year by 2050

1. Introduction

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1. Introduction

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1. Introduction

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1. Introduction

• 1200 Cobb 500 males 0-42 days

• Randomized block design• 10 replicates / treatment• 30 birds / pen

• Treatments:• Negative control• Positive control (55 ppm BMD in starter/grower, 22 ppm Stafac in finisher)

• Aromabiotic® FULL (0.18 – 0.14 – 0.09 %)

• Aromabiotic® HALF (0.09 – 0.07 – 0.05 %)

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2. Trial

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2. Trial

Medium Chain Fatty Acids (MCFA) are :• saturated (=no double bonds or ring structures) , • unbranched (=linear molecule),• monocarboxylic acids (= only 1 carboxylic group –COOH),• with a chain length of either 6, 8, 10 or 12 carbon atoms.

Trivial name Systemic name Structural Formula

Caproic acid Hexanoic acid C6:0

Caprylic acid Octanoic acid C8:0

Capric acid Decanoic acid C10:0

Lauric acid Dodecanoic acid C12:0

Bacteria Host level

Highly Antimicrobial

Animal

Reducing pathogen virulence

Improving intestinal morphology

Improving immunity

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Thompson & Hinton, 1997 Santoma et al, 2006

Van Immerseel et al, 2004Boyen, 2008

Trial at ILVO, 2010

Piepers & De Vliegher, 2012

2. Trial

NE-challenge model • Day 0: Coccivac-B vaccination (live vaccine)

• Day 7: exposure to mild challenge litter

• Day 17: oral inoculation with Clostridium perfringens

• Day 21: lesions scoring (0 - 3) + weighing

• Day 42: weighing

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2. Trial

Negative control

Positive control

Aromabiotic® FULL

Aromabiotic® HALF

Body weight (g) 568b 622a 640a 614a

FCR (mortality adjusted) 1.38a 1.34b 1.34b 1.34b

Mortality (%) 1.36a 1.36a 1.00a 1.33a

Lesion score (score 0-1-2-3) 2.00a 1.23b 1.27b 1.67ab

Results 21 days

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a,b numbers on one row with different superscripts are significantly different (P < 0.05)

3. Results

Negative control

Positive control

Aromabiotic® FULL

Aromabiotic® HALF

Body weight (g) 1964b 2130a 2111a 2064a

FCR (mortality adjusted) 2.07b 1.97a 1.98a 2.01ab

Mortality (%) 9.01a 3.79b 2.62b 3.72b

EPEF 197.9c 245.7a 245.6a 234.7a

Results 42 days

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a,b numbers on one row with different superscripts are significantly different (P < 0.05)

3. Results

Conclusions

• The NE protocol used was highly succesful: Clear induction of lesions in all groups Poor performance High mortality in negative control group

• Aromabiotic® FULL was ás succesfull as the positive control (with antibiotics) in alleviating the negative effects of NE.

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3. Conclusions

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Thank you for your attention!Questions?