ISSUE FOCUS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE June 2025 37 1. Determine the risk factors To protect your brand and reduce the risk of recalling your poultry meat or eggs due to Salmonellosis, you need to practice a monitoring program to detect the presence of Salmonella inside the poultry house as well as in the broader environment outside the production unit, and you need to determine the risk of transmission to the poultry inside the poultry house. Conservative data show that, on average, over 4% of poultry meat and eggs worldwide still test positive for Salmonella, which indicates that ‘zero risk’ does not yet exist. So, the first step is to identify where in your operation the risk of the presence of Salmonella is highest. 2. Focus on reducing the risk factors in your production process The second step is to focus on this specific risk to reduce the possible presence of Salmonella in all of the equipment, animals, handling activities, supplies, and so on. The risk of the presence of Salmonella in the environment can be quite different between companies. If you are located in a humid tropical region, close to a lake, where wild animals come to pasture and drink, the risk of contaminated rodents and insects surrounding (and probably entering) your poultry house is greater than when you are located in a region in which the temperature is rarely above 10° Celsius with no nearby lake. Research has indicated that, in Thailand, between 49% to 75% of the flocks become Salmonella-positive due to rodents and insects. Of course, the biggest risk of the presence of Salmonella is when your previous flock was contaminated with Salmonella and you start emptying the contaminated litter from your poultry house – especially when you store it for some time near the poultry house before it is carried away. This is a major cause of Salmonella spreading in the environment of your operation, very often without the possibility to control, clean and disinfect the outside environment. The risk of vectors becoming positive in this way is high, which again poses a big risk for the next flock once it enters the poultry house. 3. Salmonella: From source to target – how to reduce the transmission The final step is to improve the resistance of poultry that are susceptible to Salmonella contamination. It is well known that the poultry’s age and general health have a significant impact on the risk of transmission of Salmonella. Broilers are more sensitive to Salmonella contamination during the first 10 days, because their natural immune system is not fully functioning. In general, in a healthy flock becoming Salmonella-positive, 5% to maximum 10% of the chickens will become positive. When poultry are sick or stressed – during thinning or transportation, for instance – much more Salmonella is excreted, which increases the risk of a higher percentage of your flock becoming Salmonella-positive at the time of slaughter. But even this does not mean that your meat or eggs become positive. By focusing on the animal itself and the behavior of Salmonella in the animal, steps can be taken to minimize the success of the transmission route. The transmission route is ‘successful’ if, in a Salmonella-positive environment, poultry and poultry meat become Salmonella-positive. To prevent this, we can apply two main principles: First, by working on the bacteria once they have entered the gastro-intestinal tract; and secondly, by working on the animal itself to stimulate its self-defense system. S-prove, a functional feed ingredient from Agrifirm, works on both principles. S-PROVE: SALMONELLA-PROOF THANKS TO ITS DIRECT AND INDIRECT ANTIBACTERIAL EFFECTS S-prove has strong antibacterial activity against Salmonella for both host-specific (S. Gallinarum, S. Pullorum) and non-host-specific serotypes (e.g., S. Enteritidis, S. Typhimurium, S. Java, S. Infantis, etc.). S-prove destroys the bacterial cell membrane so that the cell content starts to leak out, weakening the bacteria and eventually resulting in cell death. In addition, due to its composition, S-prove can easily enter the bacteria through these holes and release protons to acidify the cell content, quickly resulting in bacterial death. Furthermore, once the protons are released, the
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