Water is essential in controlling body temperature, supports the immune system, assist in food digestion, and aids in the processing and elimination of body wastes. Regardless of the procurement of water, another concern is the contamination of water inside the watering systems through a substance called “BIOFILM. It occurs when bacteria attach to the pipe walls in a drinking system, creating a sticky substrate.
Biofilms are commonly defined as attached bacterial colonies of either single or multiple species, encased in an extracellular matrix. Biofilms support the survival of bacteria in suboptimal conditions and increase resistance to disinfectants, antimicrobials, and antibiotics. To date, it is estimated that 99% of bacteria can grow in biofilms, and it is has been suggested that for the majority of bacteria, biofilms are the normal mode of existence.
Plant essential oils like Thyme, Eucalyptol, Clove, Citronella, etc have been used for hundreds of years as natural medicines to combat a multitude of pathogens, including bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Several essential oils confer antimicrobial activity by damaging the cell wall and membrane, leading to cell lysis, leakage of cell contents, and inhibition of proton motive force. In addition, there is evidence that they effectively kill bacteria without promoting the acquisition of resistance.
A blend of all such essential oils is “HERBOFLOXIN”-This micro emulsified system;
The target zone for Herbofloxin is the gut; it has an antimicrobial effect in the gut due to which there is no biofilm formation.
It improves the number of good bacteria in the gut and simultaneously reduces the pathogenic bacteria. This action of Herbofloxin, in turn, provides a natural growth promoter effect in Poultry.
Herbofloxin is freely soluble in water and targets species include Salmonella, E.coli, Campylobacter, and Clostridium
Aerial pollutants in confined animal houses are widely recognized as detrimental to the respiratory health of animals kept in these facilities. Primary and opportunistic microbial pathogens may directly cause infectious and allergic diseases in farm animals, and chronic exposure to some types of aerial pollutants may exacerbate multi-factorial environmental diseases.
The key pollutants recognized in the airspace of livestock buildings are particles including dust, micro-organisms and their toxins, and gases such as ammonia, carbon dioxide and more than 100 trace gases such as volatile fatty acids. Under commercial production conditions, the airborne particles will contain a mixture of biological material from a range of sources, with bacteria, toxins, gases and volatile organic compounds adsorbed to them.
Hence, a more descriptive term for these airborne particles is bio-aerosol. Their sizes can range from aerodynamic diameters of 0.5 to 100 µm.
How are bio-aerosols formed? Under commercial production, the airborne particles will contain a mixture of biological material from a range of sources. The chickens produce large amounts of dust as a result of epithelial desquamation, as well as from feed, manure, feces and litter (Matković et al., 2009). This dust consists of a variety of airborne particles of biological origin, i.e. bacteria, fungi, endotoxins (lipopolysaccharide, LPS) of Gram-negative bacteria, 1.3-beta-glucan of fungi, fungal spores, and mycelium fragments. Hence, a more a descriptive term for these airborne particles is bio-aerosol in which the microorganisms can occur either as liquid droplets or as dry particles. To prevent this problem in poultry, Vinayak Ingredients has introduced a very effective product called “ESSENTIOLITT POULTRY”.
Essentiolitt Poultry is a blend of essential oils that works as a poultry sanitizer and reduces the formation of Bio-aerosols. Its features are as below: 1) 50% reduced respiratory diseases. 2) It posses potential as a natural agent for airborne bacterial activity inhibitors. 3) They are ecological products for insect pests control 4) Reduction in mortality of birds due to severe respiratory problems 5) It acts as a Biosecurity in Farms.
The livestock industry is an important component of the agricultural sector of any country producing meat, eggs, beef, pork, eggs, and other quality products of animal origin. This industry plays a vital role in market development and the use of technology. Food safety is universally recognized as a public health priority. It requires a holistic approach, from production to consumption. Various aspects of animal production are at risk from biological, chemical and physical agents. These agents can enter food-producing animals and animal products through a wide variety of exposure points in the production, with high potential risks for the consumers. Therefore it is essential that Good Management Practices are followed in meat production to address these hazards. Following are the recommended Good Practices that should be followed on the farm;
Sanitation and hygiene: All movable equipment like feeders, waterers, and hovers should be removed from the house, cleaned, and disinfected. The interior as well as the exterior of the house should be cleaned under pressure. The house should be disinfected with any commercial disinfectant solution at the recommended concentration.
Brooder Management Brooder house: It should be draft-free, rain-proof, and protected against predators. Brooding pens should have windows for adequate ventilation. The availability of dust particles in the environment irritates the respiratory tract of the chicks. Also, dust is one of the vehicles for disease transmission. The presence of more moisture in the environment causes ammonia fumes which irritate the respiratory tract and eyes.
Brooding Temperature: Heating is very much essential to provide the right temperature in the brooder house. Too high or too low temperature slows down growth and causes mortality. During the first week, the temperature should be 95°F (35°C) which may be reduced by 5°F per week during each successive week till 70°F (21·10C). The brooder should be switched on for at least 24 hours before the chicks arrive. As a rule of thumb, the temperature inside the brooder house should be approximately 20°F (-6·7°C) below the brooder temperature.
Animal Nutrition and Feeding: Meeting the requirements of livestock nutrition is extremely important to maintain acceptable performance of neonatal, growing, finishing, and breeding animals. An optimal nutritional program should ensure adequate intakes of amino acids (essential and nonessential), carbohydrates, fatty acids, minerals, and vitamins by animals through a supplementation program that corrects deficiencies in basal diets.22 amino acids are needed to form body protein, some of which can be synthesized by the bird (non-essential), whereas others cannot be made at all or in sufficient quantities to meet metabolic needs (essential). Essential amino acids must be supplied by the diet, and a sufficient amount of non-essential amino acids must also be supplied to prevent the conversion of essential amino acids into non-essential amino acids. These essential amino acids must therefore be fed in order to supply the building blocks needed in the synthesis of body proteins thereby supporting growth.
Some other Farm management practices include; Litter management, Water Sanitization, Animal health management, Veterinary medicines and biological, Environment and infrastructure, Animal and product handling, etc.
We at Vinayak Ingredients Pvt. Ltd. Aim at making livestock production free from all the major hazards for safe and healthy production and consumption of the meat. We believe in “HERBOCORE” process and our aim is to manufacture safe, eco-sustainable, and cost-effective solutions for the benefits of the industry”. Our wide variety of products includes;
“KiFAY”-an Amino Acid Optimizer. It improves the availability of insulin receptors which are potential binding sites for IGF-1 and thus potentiating the action of IGF-1 resulting in improved ileal digestibility of various amino acids in the feed and also improves their uptake from the blood. Thus, improved amino acid accretion from blood results in better protein turn over. It also increases the efficacy and production of IGF-1 by stimulating insulin production resulting in increased bio-availability of IGF-1 in the liver.
“HERBOFLOXIN”-Natural antibiotic growth promoter. It improves the number of good bacteria in the gut and simultaneously reduces the pathogenic bacteria.
“MUCOFORT”-An Advance Mucin enhancer and respiratory tonic.
“ESSENTIOLITT”-It is an anti-vector solution. Controls and eradicates all stages of the insects and also ensures an unfavorable environment for them to prevent re-infestation.
“VINTOXO”- an excellent Toxin Binder which absorbs various mycotoxins on the surface with a CEC of 35 to 45 mEq per 100gms; it is able to absorb polar as well as non-polar mycotoxins and clears it out of the system.
Poultry farming is the process of raising domesticated birds for the purpose of farming meat or eggs for food. Poultry farm management refers to techniques that help in maximizing the efficiency of production. Management practices are very essential to optimize production.
Disinfect shed equipments.
Purchase poultry, feed and litter from approved suppliers with quality assurance programs that meet industry standards and requirements.
Minimize access of wild birds, animals and rodents by:
Maintaining fencing and shedding
Controlling feed sources
Pest control programs.
Prevent access of outdoor range birds to unsanitized surface water.
Vaccinate replacement pullets against pathogens and diseases that threaten the farm animals. The main reason why vaccines are been provided to the chicks from the first date as the immunity of chicks are low and they are banned to various terrestrial diseases.
Minimize aerosols entering sheds from other sheds on the farm, other poultry farms, processing plants, manure stockpiles, and other birds or pigs.
Analysis of stock mortality can be done by the percentage of the deaths in the specific period of days.
Proper flow of intake for feed additive.
Birds get stressed too. Stress is a physiological response of a bird to any situation that causes it strain or tension, such as overcrowding, too high or low temperature or humidity, and the inability to hide from real or imagined threats.
It results in release of large amount of adrenaline into the blood stream which raising the blood pressure, emptying sugar supplies into the blood stream and dilating the blood vessels in the muscles to give them immediate use of this energy.
There are many factors that can cause stress in a bird, and to limit stress, the caused should be known.
Health – An underlying disease process is a common cause of stress. An infections or organ disease will tax a bird’s reserves which might cause the bird to succumb to the disease.
Diet – Birds that do not eat a well-balanced diet often develop nutritional deficiencies that can directly and indirectly affect the immune system. The lack of vitamin A causes changes in the mucus membranes which predispose a bird to respiratory infections.
Housing – An inappropriate cage size or style will add stress to a bird’s life. Overcrowding in a cage not just causes stress, but also increases the cage aggression and disease transmission.
Environment – Environmental stressors are sudden temperature changes, noises, harassment by wild animals.
Physiological stress -The process of egg laying, sexual maturity, egg binding and mating creates stress amongst birds.
In order to combat this situation, Vinayak Ingredients has launched products with the brand name “KiFAY” which reduces the catabolic stress and protects the amino acids from being degraded leading to more protein retention and decrease in excess protein reduction and “HERBOFLOXIN” which provides an immunomodulant effect that improves tolerance to pathogenic biotics and reduces stress.
Water management is the most critical components in a top-performing broiler flock. In high performing flocks, at around 21˚C, cutting edge broilers by and large will consume 1.8 to 2 times more water than feed, in weight. Water consumption will change contingent upon ecological temperature, feed quality and bird health:
1. Water consumption increases by 6% for each expansion in 1˚C between 20-32°C.
2. Water consumption increases by 5% for each expansion in 1˚C between 32-38°C.
3. Feed consumption diminishes by 1.23% for each expansion in 1˚C over 20°C.
Any considerable change in water utilization should be researched as this may show a water leak, health issues or feed problem. A drop in water consumption is frequently the primary marker of a flock issue. To assess flock performance legitimately we have to know how much water birds are consuming each day.
Large portions of today’s high performance broilers are being brought up in housing built for the broiler of the past. There are numerous alternatives used to guarantee water volume/stream will address bird issues at high pinnacle request times. Advanced water meters associated with the house controller can screen water consumption on a 24-hour premise as well as in distributed time increases amid the day. This data can figure out whether our water system is keeping up at basic ‘appeal’ times, as when the lights go ahead after a dull period. Knowing this can be extremely useful in finding performance issues on a ranch, particularly one with huge, multi-houses.
The temperature of the water that birds are drinking should also be considered. The perfect water temperature ought to associate with 10-14˚C originating from the source. Water consumed by the birds should not be over 30˚C. In the event that this happens the drinking system ought to be flushed intermittently to look after cooler, fresher water.
Along with temperature and accessibility the quality of water offered to chickens should be considered for proper growth of Broilers. The quality of water depends on several factors such as presence of bacteria and other microbes, PH, Level of minerals etc. Disinfectants like Chlorine are widely used in poultry industry for disinfection of water but it has many disadvantages such as carcinogenicity, ph dependent activity, highly corrosive and irritating substance. To avoid such problems and to improve performance of broilers Vinayak ingredients has launched an excellent product Herbofloxin which is blend of essential oils effective as Non- antibiotic growth promoter. It is used to replace disinfectants, antibioticts and acidifier used for growth promotion in water.
MOA of Herbofloxin: – It is a micro emulsion when mixed with a water forms nanoemulsion making it easier to penetrate bacterial cell wall and disrupt it. It is stable at 5 to 45 degree Celsius temperature and has long shelf life.
Micro emulsions in Poultry are dispersions of oil and water with an emulsifier. They are clear, thermodynamically stable, isotropic liquid mixtures. They are super solvents which improves stability and thermodynamic activity of formulation. Micro emulsions are beneficial to be used because it increases efficacy of the formulation allowing dose reduction. The average particle size of micro emulsion is 0.1 micrometer which helps in increasing the interfacial area thereby allowing active ingredient to get released easily. In poultry, micro emulsions are designed to include natural essential oils cell wall which in turn binds to mycotoxins to protect animals against mycotoxosis.
Vinayak Ingredients have introduced micro emulsion which is an alternative to antibiotics named as Herbofloxin. It is of natural origin prepared from essential oil of syzygium, citronella, thymus, eucalyptus. Herbofloxin has a particle size less than 0.1 micrometer which makes it easily soluble in water. It maintains poultry gut’s pH-6.5 to 6.7 which is slightly acidic. As it is a micro emulsion it has better dispersion in water, stable at 45 degree Celsius temperature and has a longer shelf life. All these factors makes it safe to be consumed by poultry without having any side effects which are otherwise usually caused by using antibiotics. Herbofloxin is natural replacer for antibiotic growth promoters.
Mechanism of action: Herbofloxin being a micro emulsion when mixed with water forms nano emulsion due to which particle size decreases further making it easier to penetrate the bacterial cell wall and disrupt it. Disruption of cell wall leads to killing of bad bacteria such as Escherichia coli, Campylobacter, Clostridium and Salmonella. Thus it acts like a bacteriostatic. It also acts as an anti-inflammatory by improving mucin coverage which is a first line of defence in poultry.
Herbofloxin as a micro emulsion replaces antibiotics such as tetracycline’s, fluoroquinolones, amino glycosides and selectively modulates poultry gut to promote the beneficial microflora.
Antioxidants play a major role in animal health, production and performance. This is due to the detrimental effects of radicals and toxic products of their metabolism on various metabolic processes. It is a well known fact that oxidative stress is involved in many degenerative disorders. The oxidative free radicals are therefore considered as pathobiochemicals mechanism for initiating or progression of various diseases. The prooxidant-antioxidant balance can be regulated by optimal nutrient uptake or providing herbal antibiotics. Thus, the essential step in maintaining the balance between the oxidative damage and antioxidative defense in the animal body would be to boost the antioxidant capacity by optimizing the dietary intake of antioxidants.
Vitamin C is a water-soluble antioxidant. It is an important anti-stress agent. However, it can be easily oxidized. Sources of vitamin C are citrus fruits and vegetables. Vitamin C is required in collagen biosynthesis and protein metabolism.
Vitamin E is the found in the biological membranes and lipid droplets. Vitamin E is absorbed in the small intestine with various efficacies depending on the diet composition, level of supplementation, age, sex and other individual characteristics of animals. It is the main chain-breaking antioxidant in biological systems.
Carotenoid is a natural pigment, responsible for yellow, orange and sometimes red pigmentations in plants, insects, birds and marine animals. They possess antioxidant activity. They have some health promoting properties, including immune system modulation. They are found in some plant-derived feed ingredients.
Manganese has an essential part of a range of enzymes taking part in antioxidant protection, bone growth and egg shell formation carbohydrate and lipid metabolism including processing of cholesterol.
Zinc is the second most abundant trace element trace element in mammals and they take part in antioxidant defense as an integral part of SOD, hormone secretion, keratin generation and epithelial tissue integrity immune function.
Iron has a vital role in antioxidant defense as an essential component of catalase, energy and protein metabolism, hence respiratory carrier, electron transport, oxidation-reduction reaction.
know the good, the bad and the ugly of inflammation in poultry?
Inflammatory responses in birds are because of an immune response. These immune responses can be non-specific (innate) immunity and specific (adaptive) immunity. Thus, the inflammatory responses can be cell-specific as in case of cell-mediated immune responses which include T or B lymphocyte responses. These are localized or site-specific whereas non-specific responses are more generalized involving phagocytic cells and innate antibody. A generalized mass inflammatory response has an overwhelming effect on today’s commercial poultry. The chain reaction of events caused by an antigen always involves the innate immunity reaction prior to the involvement of cell mediated immunity. As we learnt in in vaccination basics, vaccines improve specific antibody titers to prevent infection of target microbes. But does this stop inflammatory responses arising from the innate side of the bird? Do these inflammatory responses affect poultry? Immunity in its most non-specific forms has more demerits than otherwise. The preventive blanket of mucin and ciliary responses as in the case of respiratory and gut-associated infections is affected the most in the generalized inflammatory tidal wave. Many researchers have associated tethered mucin thinning and reduced ciliary activity as a primary reason for active infection in birds. Onc opportunistic commensals evade, they spread fast. Most cell-mediated responses that may are associated with these commensals would respond very late to such an onslaught. The most pronounced effects of these infections would be in high-stress conditions especially in heat stress. Heat stress and high ammonia concentrations or similar stresses would require rapid panting behavior which would mimic generalized inflammatory responses. Immunization reactions are common in poultry where generalized immunity might be one of the reasons for morbidity. The birds are at this stage in their young but antibody deficient forms. As it is, Vaccination is a boon in the poultry industry but frequent respiratory outbreaks could point a direction towards controlling the span of their inflammatory reign. We have seen protection from certain diseases provided by warmth generated from poultry body, and have seen several mortalities from heat stress, similarly balancing this double-edged sword should be left to nature. It is most reassuring to see the improving specifics in immunization but at the same time, it is scary to see the broadening antigen carrying potential of the microbes. All considered, surely inflammation would play a vital part in the future of poultry rearing.
The gastrointestinal tract is the most exposed surface in the body and many diseases are largely related to the gut health status of the broiler. It is an important organ system as poor gut health results in poor nutrient assimilation. Some bacteria play an important role in helping broilers digest feed. Feed constituents affect the viscosity of the gastric content which helps in the development of small intestine microbiota. Any significant fluctuation in number or type of commensal leads to diarrhea which may cause severe damage to the intestine ultimately leading to poor performance and diseased birds. Dysbiosis that outnumbers good bacteria for which bad bacteria are then able to exert their undesirable effects on the gut lining. Thus, to maintain good health and welfare farmers should focus on the integrity of the intestinal system.
Many causes lead to the loss of intestinal integrity such as.
Immuno-suppression: This can be caused due to viral diseases, vaccination, or some disease challenges.
Antimicrobial activity: The use of antimicrobial growth promoter’s effect on bacteria can affect the natural microflora of the intestine.
Environmental factors: Many clostridial spores or coccidia can persist despite harsh environmental conditions that may gain infectivity later under favorable conditions.
Feed factors: Correct formulation of the diets play a critical role. Some of the ingredients such as enzymes incorrectly mixed or applied can have devastating consequences to intestinal integrity.
Water: Adequate supply of clean potable water is a norm. Any deviation in water quality has a direct effect on the gut.
Disturbance in the intestinal integrity may affect the health status and overall performance of birds in poultry production. Strategies such as prevention programs towards infectious disease and using alternatives to antibiotics are advisable replacing the existing chemical antibiotic to maintain intestinal homeostasis.
