Research Publications (Food Safety)

Campylobacter is one of the leading causes of foodborne illness worldwide and is associated with consumption of poultry products. One potential strategy to reduce Campylobacter colonization in poultry is the use of probiotics. In an attempt to reduce Campylobacter in poultry, we isolated 117 GRAS (generally recognized as safe) bacterial isolates from the ceca of healthy birds and evaluated their efficacy against Campylobacter, using a soft agar overlay technique.

This review presents a framework for assessing the efficacy of antimicrobials used to control necrotic enteritis (NE) caused by Clostridium perfringens (CP) in the context of susceptibility testing and clinical efficacy, and their potential interactions with the intestinal microbiota of poultry.

Campylobacter is a natural member of the gut microflora in many commercial broilers and as such can become a contaminant on edible surfaces during processing. Culturing gut contents or feces can be a means to determine flock status prior to live-haul. The wide variety of non-Campylobacter background bacteria in these complex samples contaminates growth media and can make it very difficult to isolate Campylobacter.

This study investigated the effects of necrotic enteritis challenge or a necrotic enteritis challenge with an additional challenge from dietary aflatoxin B1 compared to broilers that were unchallenged. Also tested were products designed to help alleviate those effects. Lesion scores were higher in broilers challenged to induce necrotic enteritis, but this did not increase with added aflatoxin.

In-house litter composting has been reintroduced to the industry and shown to reduce bacteria by as much as 2 orders of magnitude. Other industries have demonstrated that pathogens can recolonize a waste-residual when microbial competition has been reduced or inhibited following composting. Poultry growers, in the process of shifting to in-house composting for pathogen control, should be aware of this potential problem.

An observational study examining prevalence of Campylobacter and Salmonella in environmental samples and biosecurity interventions to mitigate these 2 pathogens was performed for 3 consecutive flocks on a commercial broiler farm in northeast Georgia. Monitoring was performed first on a baseline flock for which no interventions or treatments were undertaken.

During the past two decades, food safety issues in China not only posed serious threats to Chinese consumers but also damaged the image of Chinese products internationally. In China, food safety is not only about scientific discoveries, advanced laboratories, and sanitation equipment; it is more about the role of different players in the food supply chain.

Fowl typhoid and pullorum disease, caused by Salmonella enterica serovars Gallinarum biovars Salmonella Gallinarum (S. Gallinarum) and Salmonella Pullorum (S. Pullorum), remain large threat to the organic poultry industry. These infections are serious threats to poultry health and overall flock viability especially at their early age.

The objective of this study was to determine the response of broilers to the combination of multi-enzymes and direct-fed microbial (DFM) under commercial production settings. A total of 7,000 1-day-old male broilers (Ross 308) were distributed over 10 pens (700 broilers/pen).

This study was designed to investigate the growth promoting effects of supplementing different sources and concentrations of prebiotic yeast cell wall (YCW) products containing mannanoligosaccharides in starter broilers under an immune stress and Clostridium perfringens challenge. Through a series of 6 individual studies either 240 or 288 newly hatched chicks were randomly distributed to specific dietary treatments.

Salmonellosis is one of the most common worldwide zoonosis, and the Enteritidis and Typhimurium serotypes are most prevalent. In this study, we evaluated the effects of a diet supplemented with mannanoligosaccharides (MOS) on CD3+, CD4+, CD8+, and goblet cell counts in the intestines of broilers vaccinated and challenged with Salmonella Enteritidis. The evaluation was based on randomized experiments including 45 chickens divided into 3 experimental groups.