Intestinal inflammation in chickens. Productive and economic consequences

Intestinal inflammation is one of the factors that should interest present-day producers the most when it comes to focusing on:

• broiler efficiency
• meat quality
• reducing the use of antibiotics in the field

The intestinal inflammation/permeability complex may be behind some pathological problems of great interest (lameness, septicemia, dislocations and bone  fractures in slaughterhouses, etc).

Besides, and as it happens in many other scenarios, for some technicians, what does not produce clinical disease is not a problem!

Although a universally accepted model for evaluating the effects of inflammation is still not available, different systems have already been developed to carry out this evaluation at the intestinal level. With the purpose of making an objective assessment of the problem .

In reality, relatively little is known about the actual effect of intestinal inflammation in terms of zootechnical response. However, this assessment is essential in order to highlight the true economic interest behind the different available mechanisms to deal with this problem. EIt is essential to know how much something costs in order to determine how much can spent for its control.

Results of 21 experimental trials

To assess the economic impact of intestinal inflammation on broiler productivity, different experimental tests were carried out aiming to provoke inflammatory responses at the intestinal level through various means.A total of 21 different trials were carried out with further analysis of the obtained results.

» Objectives 

In these tests different objectives were sought, mainly focusing on: making an assessment of the systems used to evaluate the process→  the use of enhancing substances, etc.

» Materials & Methods →  Data from all the trials was collected for the final analysis. Such data included:

• negative and positive controls (i.e. animals with and without an inflammatory challenge)
• growth parameters and feed conversion ratio (FCR).

Without considering the effects of the different treatments, which escape the initial objective of this study.

→ Challenges. The means used to induce inflammation were:

• • • In 6 tests : Use of bacterial lipopolysaccharides
    • In 5 tests : Use of Eimerias
    • In 3 tests : Combination of Eimerias and C. perfringens
    • In 2 tests : Thermal stress
    • In 1 test : Necrotic enteritis
    • In 1 test : Aflatoxins
    • In 1 test : E. Coli
    • In 1 test : Mixture of bacteria
    • In 1 test : MAS virus (Malabsorption syndrome)