ISSUE FOCUS 32 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE June 2025 The health and performance of poultry depend critically on gut health and microbiome balance, which can be disrupted by variable microbial loads in feed. When high levels of pathogens are present, the bird's system diverts energy to defense mechanisms, such as increased mucus production by goblet cells, rather than growth. For example, research by Dr. Dan Moore at Colorado Quality Research demonstrated that sanitized feed reduces mortality by at least 50% (Figure 1) and lesion severity (Table 1) in broilers challenged with clinical necrotic enteritis (NE). While birds receiving sanitized starter feed (T1) avoided high mortality, they still showed reduced performance in weight gain and FCR. However, birds receiving sanitized feed during the actual challenged period- either grower finisher treated (T3) or all phase treated (T2) - performed similarly to non-challenged control (T4) in weight gain, showing that timing of sanitized feed application is critical for maintaining performance during a disease challenged scenario. While the body of research demonstrating that decreasing microbial loads in feed supports better poultry health and performance continues to grow, researchers note that more work is required to fully understand the mechanisms connecting feed sanitation to microbiome development and intestinal health. When evaluating the economic aspects of feed sanitation, producers with budget constraints should strategically target treatment during the most critical production phases when disease risk is highest, when comprehensive all phase treatment is challenging. This targeted approach balances intervention costs against the potential financial impacts of disease outbreaks, performance losses, and market disruptions that contaminated feed can trigger. % NE Mortality D0-35 39.58% 13.89% 0.00% 12.85% 21.88% P<0.0001 A B T1 Treated Starter T2 Treated All Phase T3 Treated Grower Finisher T4 Unchallenged control T5 Challenged Control B B NE-derived mortality Sanitized Feed Controls Figure 1. Lower NE-derived mortality rates: Sanitized feed protects broilers in necrotic enteritis challenge mode Mean Lesion Score Oocyst/g 2.15b 19,459b T1 1.55b 9,508b T2 1.82b 838a T3 0.00a 1996a -NE Ctrl 3.70c 14,725b +NE Ctrl 0.0014 0.0003 P-value Table 1. Sanitized feed reduces lesions and oocyst count in broilers small intestine during necrotic enteritis challenge
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