Changing the Future of Poultry Production:
Helping Poultry Producers Improve the Health of Broilers and Increase Profits
Challenge:
Poultry producers face many challenges and variables that affect profitability when raising broilers. The presence of pathogens, including Salmonella and E. coli threaten the health and performance of the birds, while more and more markets are eliminating out the use of antibiotics at the demand of consumers. Additionally, ever-increasing feed costs continue to be the largest expense for poultry producers.
Solution:
Probiotics containing spore-producing Bacillus strains can effectively reduce pathogens, improve animal health, boost growth performance, and improve FCR.
Tanika O’ Conner-Dennie, Ph.D., Animal Nutritionist, understood that the market was shifting away from the use of antibiotics, but certain alternative additives she had been evaluating hadn’t worked well reducing pathogens like E. coli and Salmonella. Through a network of peers in the industry, Tanika was introduced to Engrain and the eMAX solution, and immediately saw the opportunity to reduce the presence of diseases in the flock as well as improve her flock’s performance.
“Innovations often happen in smaller companies first and they are then bought out by larger companies who then raise the prices. I believed in Engrain’s passion for their eMAX solution and that their product truly was different than other in the industry. Where most probiotics have 1-2 strains of Bacillus, eMAX has 4 different strains that help fight pathogens.”
Previous studies conducted by Engrain have shown the ability of each individual Bacillus strain to secrete an array of substances that can be beneficial for the bird and have specific antagonistic effects towards common poultry pathogens.
Tanika conducted several trials in which she evaluated eMAX against several probiotics from other industry suppliers. The starter and grower period performance were below expectations where Maxiban was also being fed. Tanika brought her concerns to Engrain. Engrain specialists went back to the lab to find that the Narasin component of Maxiban was preventing the probiotic Bacillus from germinating. Once this issue was accounted for, Tanika saw the significant difference in flock health, weight gain, and feed conversion ratio at harvest that was expected with eMAX.
“I then thought, ‘What if we added eMAX to the water? Could we get the same results? I brought this idea back to Engrain and not only did they listen, but they also reformulated eMAX to work in a water-soluble form.”
The addition of the probiotic to both the water and feed, shows an accumulated effect of constant dosing and accumulated concentration of the probiotic Bacillus driving health and performance benefits.
“eMAX was not developed in a University. It was developed in the field in hot, humid conditions much like where we are located. That is how I knew eMAX could work and it did.”
Since the trial, Tanika has successfully removed antibiotics and ionophores from their broiler production and continues to see increases in growth performance, improved FCR, and better flock health. The company now has set the new industry standard for the region.
