Flocking to animals' defence
Feeding helpful bacteria boosts chicken immunity
By Arthur Churchyard
Many bacteria can be a health hazard to consumers, but University of
Guelph researchers say helpful bacteria called probiotics can be fed to
chickens to reduce illness-causing bacteria - boosting chicken immunity
and consumer health.
Prof. Shayan Sharif, Department of Pathobiology, and a team of collaborators
are studying the effect of probiotics on chickens' intestinal linings
to see how the bacteria interact with Salmonella and how overall animal
health is influenced.
By having a clearer understanding of these functions, Sharif hopes to
promote probiotics as a health-management tool for chicken producers.
"Once we understand how probiotics reduce Salmonella, the impact
will go beyond academic achievement to become a valuable tool in the industry,"
he says. "Producers will have a way to prevent illness in chickens,
and the risk of food poisoning from poultry products will fall."
The research team is trying to understand how probiotics control Salmonella
and to quantify the impact of Salmonella reduction in the animal's intestine,
where bacteria usually reside.
Sharif also wants to know if probiotics create a heightened immune response
in poultry. He suggests that helpful bacteria might send a cue to the
chicken's health defences, spurring action against harmful bacteria. Physical
evidence of this could be seen in the blood and gut secretion samples
being analyzed at the Ontario Veterinary College.
Special chicken feeds containing probiotics are already available in
Canada, but they're marketed as feed supplements, not feed with medicinal
value. To make medicinal claims, makers of probiotic feeds would need
to get approval from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, says Sharif.
This research is funded by the Poultry Industry Council, the Saskatchewan
Chicken Industry Development Fund, the Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council/Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Partnerships Program
and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.
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Shayan Sharif,
519-824-4120 x 54641, shayan@uoguelph.ca
Arthur Churchyard is a writer with SPARK (Students
Promoting Awareness of Research Knowledge), a student research writing
program at the University of Guelph.
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