22 Jul 2026

Immunomodulation as a Nutritional Strategy to Strengthen Poultry Health Without Compromising Performance

At WPC 2026, Dr. Mariel Neves Tavares discussed how feed-based immunomodulation can strengthen birds' natural defenses, supporting health and performance while reducing reliance on antibiotics.

Dr. Mariel Neves Tavares

SAVE IN THE LIBRARY PDF FILE

Toronto, Canada – As poultry producers continue to face increasing disease pressure while reducing antibiotic use, nutritional strategies that strengthen birds’ natural defenses are receiving growing attention. At the 2026 World’s Poultry Congress, aviNews International had the opportunity to chat with Dr. Mariel Neves Tavares, Technical and Sales Manager at Olmix USA, about the role of immunomodulation in poultry production and how feed-based interventions can help birds better cope with health challenges throughout the production cycle.

Effective immunomodulation is not about continuously stimulating the immune system. Instead, it focuses on helping birds mount an appropriate immune response when needed while avoiding unnecessary metabolic costs that could negatively affect growth and production.

Supporting the Bird Rather than Fighting the Pathogen

Biosecurity, disinfection processes, and good management practices reduce the bird’s exposure to pathogens. However, once pathogens are present in the production environment, nutrition becomes an important tool for strengthening the bird’s immune response. That constitutes the foundation of immunomodulation. Rather than directly targeting pathogens, immunomodulatory strategies help the animal regulate both pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory responses, allowing the immune system to react proportionally to the level of challenge. Maintaining this balance is essential because excessive immune activation consumes energy that would otherwise be directed toward growth, egg production, or reproductive performance.

“What you want is to have a better immune response but without wasting metabolic energy. This is the concept of immunomodulation,” Dr. Tavares explains.

Stress Creates Opportunities for Disease

Throughout the production cycle, birds are exposed to numerous stressors that can temporarily reduce immune competence and open doors for the pathogens to take advantage. Early life, feed transitions, movement from rearing to production, heat stress, cold stress, and management-related events all represent periods during which birds become more susceptible to disease. Under these conditions, common challenges the birds face in the field come in the form of Salmonella, E. coli, coccidiosis, Clostridium, along with Bronchitis, Gumboro, and Avian Influenza viruses, and exploit the weakened immune defenses. By supporting immune readiness during these critical periods, nutritional interventions may help birds better withstand infectious challenges while maintaining productive performance.

Seaweed-Derived Polysaccharides as Immunomodulators

A lot of ingredients, vitamins, minerals, or other feed additives can improve poultry’s immune response. However, AlgoGuard, an Olmix feed additive developed from marine polysaccharides extracted from green and red seaweeds, offers a lot of benefits compared to other additives. According to Olmix, AlgoGuard combines two complementary mechanisms of action:

The marine sulfated polysaccharides derived from green seaweed are designed to stimulate innate immune pathways by activating Toll-like receptors (TLR2 and TLR4), supporting the production of interleukins and antibodies involved in the immune response.
A second marine polysaccharide fraction derived from red seaweed targets intestinal health by supporting gut integrity. 70% of the immune response comes from the gut as it’s where the main phagocytic cells are being produced to target the pathogens in the gut lumen.

Both components promote mucin production within the intestine and strengthen the intestinal barrier that serves as the bird’s first line of defense against pathogens. By combining immunostimulation with improvements in gut barrier function, the product aims to enhance the bird’s capacity to respond to infectious pressure while maintaining digestive health.

Continue after advertising.

Gut Health Remains Central to Immune Competence

There’s a tight relationship between gut health and immunity. Because a large proportion of the bird’s immune activity originates within the gastrointestinal tract, maintaining intestinal integrity plays a central role in disease resistance. A healthy intestinal barrier helps prevent pathogen invasion while supporting the development and activity of immune cells responsible for recognizing and eliminating infectious agents. Dr. Tavares emphasizes that nutritional strategies capable of simultaneously supporting gut integrity and immune function may offer greater benefits than approaches targeting only one aspect of health.

Balancing Immunity and Productivity

A key challenge in designing immunomodulatory programs is avoiding excessive immune activation. While a strong inflammatory response is necessary during infection, maintaining that response continuously can divert nutrients and energy away from productive functions. For fast-growing broilers, which have a relatively short production cycle, preserving metabolic efficiency is especially important. Likewise, breeders and laying hens require balanced immune function over much longer production periods. Effective immunomodulators should activate immune responses according to the level of challenge rather than maintaining birds in a constant state of immune stimulation. This balanced approach helps preserve productive performance while improving resilience against disease.

Nutrition as Part of Integrated Disease Prevention

As poultry production continues to prioritize sustainable production systems, nutritional support for immune function is becoming an increasingly important component of health management. Rather than replacing biosecurity, vaccination, or sound management practices, immunomodulation represents another tool within an integrated disease prevention strategy. By helping birds respond more efficiently to health challenges while minimizing unnecessary metabolic costs, nutritional interventions may contribute to improved welfare, stronger flock resilience, and more consistent production performance. As research into functional feed ingredients continues to expand, balancing immune competence with biological efficiency is likely to remain a central objective for poultry nutrition in the years ahead.