Alternative to
Antibiotics Use in Poultry Found
KTIC 840 Rural Radio -
October 30, 2008
Currently, poultry producers use sub-therapeutic amounts of
antibiotics in poultry feed as growth promoters and to control bacterial
pathogens or parasites. However, bacteria can become resistant to the
antibiotics, so ARS scientists have been looking for alternatives. What they
have found is that a hop plant contains bitter acids known to be potent
antimicrobials. And it is feasible to use one of these acids called lupulone as an alternative to antibiotics in poultry
rearing.
ARS scientists examined the effect of feeding different
concentrations of lupulone to broiler chickens to
determine the compound's impact on clostridium populations in the intestinal
tracts of birds inoculated with C. perfringens. The
research revealed that after 22 days--the timeframe associated with the disease
- counts were significantly reduced in the lupulone-treated
group compared to another group of chickens that did not receive the lupulone treatment.
Further, they found that lupulone
controlled from 30 to 50 percent of certain bacteria in the intestines of
chickens. Those bacteria not only can cause contamination of meat during
processing, but also may pose major production losses by causing disease in the
broiler chicken.
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