Page 8 - National Poultry Newspaper

Priscilla Gerber of the University of New England, School of Environmental and Rural Science, Animal Science department.
An increase in demand and cost of chicken bedding has stimulated interest in alternative bedding sources worldwide.
However, risks arising from the use of alterna- tive bedding materials for raising meat chickens are currently unknown.
The combination of bedding material and bird excreta is known as ‘litter’.
The review assessed knowledge regarding contaminants and man- agement risks associated with chicken bedding materials, focussing on the Australian produc- tion system, to enable the selection and risk man- agement of alternative bedding.
To assess the level of potential risk posed by these hazards, guidance values can be used as part of a semiquantita- tive risk assessment pro- cess in accordance with ISO 31000 (ISO, 2018) and 31010 (IEC, 2019).
Alternative chicken bedding materials and proposed guidance levels
BEDDING material or litter is an important requirement of meat chicken production, which can influence bird welfare, health and food safety.
A substantial increase in demand and cost of chicken bedding has stimulated interest in al- ternative bedding sourc- es worldwide.
bedding materials to ab- sorb moisture from bird excreta and to increase bird welfare.
ses results of a survey, conducted January 2020, of the available published peer-reviewed literature on contaminants in feed, bedding and litter.
for further investigation or mitigation if exceeded in potential bedding ma- terials.
Organic chemicals, el- emental and biological contaminants, as well as physical and manage- ment hazards, need to be managed in litter to pro- tect the health of chick- ens and consequently that of human consum- ers.
Bedding materials tra- ditionally used around the world are usually or- ganic – wood shavings, sawdust, bark, rice hulls, peanut and nut hulls, straw, shredded paper and peat – but some in- organic materials such as sand have also been used.
Because of the lack of guidelines to assess the risk of various contami- nants and hazards in al- ternative bedding mate- rials, contaminants that may be present in con- ventional bedding mate- rials, housing structures and poultry feed – able to cause disease in chick- ens and be transferred to chicken products – were reviewed.
It is crucial to consider the consequences and likelihoods of certain risks when choosing to use alternative bedding for poultry production and to consider control options.
This requires access to information on the trans- fer of contaminants from litter to food, to inform risk profiles and assess- ments to guide litter risk management.
A substantial increase in demand and cost of chicken bedding has stimulated interest in al- ternative bedding sourc- es worldwide.
As such, a risk assess- ment method based on the guidance values sug- gested in this review will assist the chicken meat industry in assessing the likely hazards in alterna- tive bedding materials.
Current rearing sys- tems for meat chicken production usually use
A number of alterna- tive bedding materials, derived from recycled materials from the wood and paper industries – re- cycled wood, dried paper sludge and recycled card- board – and by-products of crop industries such as cereal crop residues, crop and nut hulls have been proposed.
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To date, there have been a number of studies on potential hazards and contaminants regarding the use of spent chicken litter for land applica- tion.
Contaminant levels that cause adverse health ef- fects in chickens and maximum permitted lev- els of contaminants in feedstuff were provided to aid selection of al- ternative bedding using a risk management ap- proach.
Future research could improve knowledge around the transfer of contaminants from bed- ding material to meat chicken tissue and po- tential impacts to bird health, as there are very limited studies in this area.
However, very few studies have investigated potential contaminants that are detrimental to animals and humans in bedding materials be- fore their use, and those are restricted to recy- cled wood and paper and cardboard by-products.
Contaminants and hazards of known and potential concern in al- ternative bedding are described and compared with existing standards for feed.
Based on the limited studies published, there is currently no indication that alternative bedding materials such as recy- cled wood and by-prod- ucts of the paper industry would cause illness to chickens, or that trans- ference of compounds would be above the max- imum permitted limits in edibletissues.
There have been many recent examples of con- tamination of chicken meat and eggs because of chicken exposure to per- sistent organic pollutants through contaminated feed, housing materials, and litter in traditionally raised chickens.
The contaminants con- sidered included organic chemical contaminants such as pesticides, el- emental contaminants such as arsenic, cadmium and lead, biological con- taminants such as phyto- toxins, mycotoxins, and microorganisms, physi- cal hazards and manage- ment hazards.
However, it is impor- tant to consider that there could be variability in contamination in differ- ent batches of bedding material, and additional studies to ascertain the contamination potential of bedding materials from different sources is required.
Alternative bedding materials with unknown properties could increase such risks.
Sustainable sourcing and management of bed- ding for poultry produc- tion is a recognised issue within poultry industries in many countries.
While this review has identified potential haz- ards in litter based on available experimental data, additional hazards may be identified that represent significant risk to the industry, and fur- ther work needs to be done to both identify novel risks and provide guidance values to un- derpin industry risk as- sessments.
Litter material may also be associated with increase in the incidence of diseases and physical injury to chickens.
The use of alternative bedding has the poten- tial to adversely affect the health and welfare of chickens, workers and consumers of chicken meat.
Therefore, the bedding used can potentially have negative impacts not on- ly on bird health and wel- fare but also on overall food safety as contami- nants can be transferred to humans consuming chicken meat.
Organic and elemen- tal contaminants can be transferred from litter to the meat and organs of meat chickens during the production cycle and cause disease to chickens or make the meat unsuit- able for human consump- tion.
For the full review and scientific literature for acceptable levels of con- taminants in chicken feed for guidance by those in- volved in selecting and using bedding materi- als, visit sciencedirect. com/science/article/pii/ S0032579120306994
Page 8 – National Poultry Newspaper, September 2021
A review by Priscilla Gerber of the University of New England, School of Environmental and Rural Science, Animal Science department and Integrity Ag and Envi- ronment’s Nic Gould and Eugene McGahan analy-
The maximum guid- ance levels in the total diet for poultry and the toxicological levels based on published experimen- tal data are provided for key contaminants, which can be used as a trigger
For further information on agri-environmental research, visit integri tyag.net.au
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