Page 11 - National Poultry Newspaper

USPOULTRY announces the release of a first-ever report of antimicrobial use across US broiler chickens and turkeys
US Poultry & Egg As- sociation announces the release of the US poultry industry’s first- ever report quantifying antimicrobial use on broiler chicken and tur- key farms.
The new report shows dramatic reductions of turkey and broiler chick- en antimicrobial use over a five-year timeframe.
As part of its commit- ment to the transparen- cy and sustainability of a safe food supply, the poultry industry aims to strike a balance between keeping poultry flocks healthy and the responsi- ble use of antimicrobials, especially those medi- cally important to human health.
Under the research di- rection of Dr Randall Singer of Mindwalk Con- sulting Group, this report represents a five-year set of data collected from 2013 to 2017 regarding the use of antimicrobials in US broiler chickens and turkeys through- out their lifetime, from hatchery to harvest.
It was prepared through a systematic collection of on-farm antimicrobial use data to capture the disease indications and routes of administration through which antimi- crobials were given to the poultry.
Given several key dif- ferences among broiler chickens and turkeys – namely differences in weight, life span, suscep- tibility to lifetime illness and the number of ef- fective medical therapies available – the data from broiler chickens and tur- keys should neither be combined nor compared.
Key changes among broiler chickens over the five-year period show:
• Broiler chickens re- ceiving antimicrobials in the hatchery decreased from 93 percent to 17 percent;
• Hatchery gentamicin use decreased approxi- mately 74 percent;
• Medically important in-feed antimicrobial use in broiler chickens de- creased by as much as 95 percent. For example: tet- racycline 95 percent, vir- giniamycin 60 percent;
• Medically important water-soluble antimicro- bial use in broiler chick- ens decreased by as much as 72 percent. For exam- ple: penicillin 21 percent, tetracycline 47 percent, sulfonamide 72 percent; and
• There was a docu- mented shift to the use of antimicrobial drugs that are not considered medically important to humans.
Key changes among turkeys over the five-year period show:
• Turkeys receiving an- timicrobials in the hatch- ery decreased from 96 percent to 41 percent;
• Medically important in-feed antimicrobial use in turkeys decreased: tet- racycline 67 percent; and
• Medically important water-soluble antimicro- bial use decreased sub- stantially. For example: penicillin 42 percent, tetracycline 28 percent, lincomycin 46 percent, neomycin 49 percent, erythromycin 65 percent.
Antimicrobial use among broiler chickens and turkeys decreased dramatically between 2013 and 2017 and there are a couple of key expla- nations for this:
• Changes in FDA regu- lations, which were fully implemented in January 2017, effectively elimi- nated the use of medi- cally important antimi- crobials for production purposes and placed all medically important antimicrobials adminis- tered in the feed or water of poultry under veteri- nary supervision;
• A continued focus by poultry companies on
disease prevention, there- by reducing the need for antimicrobials; and
• Improved record- keeping of all antimi- crobial administrations, which is a key compo- nent of antimicrobial stewardship.
Furthermore, the broil- er chicken and turkey in- dustries have increased the production of ani- mals raised without anti- microbials.
Participation in this ef- fort was entirely volun- tary.
The poultry industry recognised the impor- tance of this work and responded.
The 2017 data in this report represent more than 7.5 billion chickens and 160 million turkeys.
USPOULTRY vice president of research, Dr John Glisson, said, “This research is the first step in determining how an- timicrobials are used in the entire poultry pro- duction system of the US and to succeed, we need
participation from the majority of companies. We couldn’t be more pleased with the response of the poultry industry.”
Glisson cautions, though, that there are still serious bird illnesses (necrotic enteritis, gan- grenous dermatitis and colibacillosis) for which the poultry industry has few effective interven- tions.
When birds get sick from these diseases, they must receive therapy.
“Driving good anti- microbial stewardship in poultry, as opposed to simple documentation of reduced use, is our end goal for the best out- comes for both the peo- ple and the poultry,” Dr Glisson said.
Moving forward in 2019, Dr Singer will continue the annual col- lection of data from the broiler chicken and tur- key industries and will begin collecting data from the US table egg industry.
Glisson anticipates this new data will provide greater clarity about anti- microbial use in individ- ual flocks, “We expect even more detailed data on flock antimicrobial usage and record-keeping in the years ahead, which thoroughly supports US- POULTRY efforts to en- sure proper stewardship of medications.”
Farm Packing made Simple
Low maintenance, reliability, easy cleaning and gentle egg handling. Capacity up to 25,200 eggs/hour (70 cases/hour).
Appointed distributor in Australia:
www.macrospec.com.au - sales@macrospec.com.au - tel. +61 3 52730224
www.sanovogroup.com - as
i
ia@sanovogroup.com - tel. +603-4820 8301
• Hatchery gentamicin
use decreased approxi- mately 42 percent; www.poultrynews.com.au
National Poultry Newspaper, September 2019 – Page 11