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.