Trouw Nutrition’s Poultry Nutrition and Health Unit, in Castilla la-Mancha, Spain, was officially opened on September 14, 2021. The occasion was marked with a virtual grand opening which included a tour of the climate-controlled facility, the latest addition to Trouw Nutrition’s Poultry Research Center, a campus focused on broilers, pullets and laying hens.
At the new unit, researchers study how feed, farm and health management interventions contribute to bird health and performance across diverse climates and different production schemes.
The climate-control technologies integrated into the center allow the simulation of the environmental conditions of varied geographies. Temperature, relative humidity, and stocking density can all be adjusted to assess how birds grow and behave in various climates and regions, yielding findings to guide nutrition, farm management and health practices.
Evaluating environmental conditions
Four separate rooms in the unit enable researchers to conduct studies simultaneously.
A trial in one room might reflect a production environment in Brazil, for example, while those in adjacent rooms might simulate weather conditions on farms in South Africa, Canada, or Ukraine.
Each room can accommodate 48 pens holding up to 25 birds per pen, and study pens can be adjusted to reflect various stocking densities. Up to seven different water treatments can simultaneously be evaluated per study room, randomized by pen, facilitating water treatment comparisons. Drinkers can be precisely adjusted to complement bird development.
From a nutrition and health perspective, researchers can evaluate the effects of diet formulations and additives on birds’ performance under controlled exposure to pathogens. Interventions to help birds manage heat stress and support performance in varied thermal/humidity conditions can also be studied.
Watch: Ana Isabel Garcia Ruiz details key research areas at the new facility.
Considering digestibility and bioavailability
The Poultry Nutrition and Health Facility adds to the Poultry Research Center’s campus that includes a full-scale feed facility, allowing evaluation of how even subtle changes to feed can influence bird health and performance. For example, digestibility and bioavailability cages evaluate how changing any diet ingredient may influence performance, as well as how much of a nutrient is available to be utilized by the bird following intake.
Transparency supports animal welfare
A priority is placed on the campus’ transparency of processes and procedures, as well as on biosecurity.
Every room in the new unit is visible via a viewing window. Additionally, a bird-view visitor area, elevated from the floor, allows customers, academics, and researchers to observe the studies taking place. This facilitates transparency and, at the same time, supports biosecurity.
Researchers can adjust temperature, humidity and stocking density conditions to support animal health and performance studies. (Courtesy Trouw Nutrition)
All studies are conducted under internal and external animal welfare committee oversight and are supervised by an onsite veterinarian. Annual reviews are conducted to assure control standards, such as pen length, width, and other welfare metrics, are maintained. Level 2 biosafety ensures that any pathogenic risk is contained or destroyed.
Bird welfare is another high priority. The research team complies with the “3 R” approach to animal research – reduce, refine and replace – for a number of initiatives including, but not limited to, antibiotic reduction efforts.
The first “R” – reducing – focuses on finding alternative methods that reduce bird stress. Refining strategies aim to minimize the number of birds that are used in a treatment. Replacing efforts aim to develop new methods to test products without animals – for example, replacing animals with technical models.
Remarking on the facility’s opening, Dr. Ana Isabel Garcia Ruiz, manager, Poultry Research Center at Trouw Nutrition, said: “The development, testing and validation activities designed under highly controlled conditions and, in some cases, under environmental and microbiological challenges, narrows the gap between in-vitro research carried out in the controlled laboratory environment and in-vivo studies on commercial farms. The ability to observe studies carried out at the facility supports a higher level of transparency for stakeholders across the feed to food chain.”
The unit is also used in collaborative studies that Trouw Nutrition conducts with university partners around the globe.
Watch: Barbara Brutsaert details how the facility’s research can be applied on-farm.
Supporting the shift from antibiotics
Studies conducted at the campus and on validation farms around the globe are informing approaches to reduce antibiotics in poultry production.
As poultry farmers are in the business of achieving consistent and high-performing flocks, cycle after production cycle, hesitation to remove antibiotics from production is common. However, there is growing concern about the threats that antibiotic resistance poses to human and animal health.
Marketplace and regulatory pressures are another worry. Growing pressure from regulatory bodies, as well as consumers’ desire – and willingness to pay – for protein products raised without antibiotics, is accelerating interest in antibiotic alternatives. Strategies to support flock health and performance without antibiotics can help safeguard consumers’ confidence in the poultry products they buy and help protect the animal protein industry.
The technologies and systems integrated into the new Poultry Nutrition and Health Unit in southeast Spain allow highly specific poultry nutrition strategies to be developed. (Courtesy Trouw Nutrition)
A Farm Perspective: 3 questions on removing antibiotics from poultry production
Poultry International asked Jose Maria Diez Gata, director of technical integration and technical management at Spanish poultry company Grupo SADA, to share his perspective on removing antibiotics from poultry production.
PI: Why did SADA choose to raise broilers without antibiotics?
Diez Gata: There is growing demand for transparency in broiler production. Retailers’ and governments worldwide are increasingly demanding that producers reduce antibiotics or even produce without any antibiotics. SADA wanted to take a proactive approach to reducing antibiotic use and to help lower the risk of resistance, rather than wait for legislation or market pressures.
PI: What are the components of an integrated approach to reducing antibiotics?
Diez Gata: SADA’s integrated approach includes feed, farm, and health management practices. Monitoring and accurate diagnosis across the entire production chain is crucial. We work with experts to make sure that critical control points are addressed across each phase of production. Strict internal and external biosecurity measures along the production chain are of utmost importance as are excellent brooding conditions, housing, and climate on farms.
Our nutritionists take care of managing the nutritional and feed safety of birds’ diets. Feed with good digestibility and safe feed and water are pre-requisites for producing poultry without antibiotics. We rely on veterinary diagnosis and vaccination protocols to determine whether antibiotics are necessary, to limit the use of narrow spectrum antibiotics. Targeted feed and water additives help minimize pathogen pressures and support gut health – key to health and performance.
PI: What benefits have come from the integrated antibiotic reduction approach?
Diez Gata: Producing antibiotic-free chickens is a source of pride and, after the necessary adaptation period, better technical results are achieved. Sourcing healthy day-old chicks, properly sanitizing drinking water and maintaining ideal environmental conditions during rearing are the keys to successful antibiotic-free production.
Reducing use of antibiotics is an obligation for those dedicated to animal production. Helping to control resistance is essential if we are to maintain antibiotics’ efficacy when their use is necessary in human or animal medicine.
Watch: Jose Maria Diez Gata explains how Grupo Sada is raising broiler flocks without using antibiotics.
