Researchers from the Department of Poultry Science at the University of Georgia, together with the U. S. National Poultry Research Center (USNPRC), detected that the type of poultry litter used to raise chickens is critical in their pre-harvest health.
The researchers found that: "reusing litter instead of supplying fresh litter every time can help bolster the birds' immune systems. Moreover, they reported that reusing the litter avoids antibiotic-resistant transfer between bacterial species."
Dr. Adelumola Oladeinde (Research microbiologist with USNPRC and adjunct faculty in UGA's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences) is the lead author of this project who established:
"Similar to the way human breastmilk contains good bacteria that help boost a human baby's immune system, litter is the first bacteria that chicks encounter, and it also boosts their immune system. Chickens raised on fresh litter only get the microbiome of the litter itself, which is mostly just wood shavings."
As part of the evaluation, the researchers infected the chickens with a non-antibiotic resistant strain of Salmonella. After that, the chickens were raised either on fresh or reused litter (The reused litter was a mixture of wood shavings, feces, uric acid, feathers, and chicken feed).
The study showed that those chickens under the reused litter treatment presented a lower Salmonella positivity rate (66%)than those raised on fresh litter (79%).
Moreover, some of these Salmonella-infected chickens on fresh litter were infected with a multi-drug resistant strain of Salmonella. At the same time, they found no multi-drug resistant Salmonella in chickens on reused litter.
In conclusion, it is important to consider reusing litter to raise broilers since the study demonstrated its critical role in birds' health and the control of antibiotic-resistant spread.
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Dr. Oladeinde also mentioned that these findings have global implications
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