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Impacts of Short-Term Antibiotic Withdrawal and Long-Term Judicious Antibiotic Use on Resistance Gene Abundance and Cecal Microbiota Composition on Commercial Broiler Chicken Farms in Quebec.

ABSTRACT: The ever-increasing problem of antibiotic resistance makes routine use of antibiotics in animal production no longer considered as a reasonable and viable practice. The Chicken Farmers of Canada have developed and are implementing an Antimicrobial Use Reduction Strategy, which has the ultimate goal of eliminating the preventive use of medically important antibiotics in broiler chicken and turkey production. However, very little is known about the real overall impact of an antibiotic use reduction strategy in complex ecosystems, such as the bird intestine or the commercial broiler chicken farm. The main objectives of the present study were to compare the abundance of antibiotic resistance-encoding genes, characterize the intestinal microbiota composition, and evaluate the presence of Clostridium perfringens, in six commercial poultry farms adopting short-term antibiotic withdrawal and long-term judicious use strategy. Implementing an antibiotic-free program over a 15-months period did not reduce the abundance of many antibiotic resistance-encoding genes, whereas the judicious use of antibiotics over 6 years was found effective. The short-term antibiotic withdrawal and the long-term judicious use strategy altered the intestinal microbiota composition, with the Ruminococcaceae and Lachnospiraceae families being negatively impacted. These findings are in agreement with the lower production performance and with the increased C. perfringens populations observed for farms phasing out the use of antibiotics. Adopting a conventional rearing program on commercial broiler chicken farms selected for specific antibiotic resistance-encoding genes in many barns. This study highlights the potential impacts of different rearing programs in poultry production and will help guide future policies in order to reduce the use of antibiotics while maintaining production performance.

SUBMITTER: Turcotte C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7779680 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Impacts of Short-Term Antibiotic Withdrawal and Long-Term Judicious Antibiotic Use on Resistance Gene Abundance and Cecal Microbiota Composition on Commercial Broiler Chicken Farms in Québec.

Turcotte Catherine C Thibodeau Alexandre A Quessy Sylvain S Topp Edward E Beauchamp Guy G Fravalo Philippe P Archambault Marie M Gaucher Marie-Lou ML

Frontiers in veterinary science 20201221

The ever-increasing problem of antibiotic resistance makes routine use of antibiotics in animal production no longer considered as a reasonable and viable practice. The Chicken Farmers of Canada have developed and are implementing an Antimicrobial Use Reduction Strategy, which has the ultimate goal of eliminating the preventive use of medically important antibiotics in broiler chicken and turkey production. However, very little is known about the real overall impact of an antibiotic use reductio ...[more]

PMID: 33409294

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Project description:Antimicrobials are sometimes given to food animals at low doses in order to promote faster growth. However, the mechanisms by which those drugs improve performance are not fully understood. This study aimed to investigate the impact of zinc bacitracin (55g/ton), enramycin (10g/ton); halquinol® (30g/ton); virginiamycin (16,5g/ton) and avilamycin (10g/ton) on the cecal microbiota of broiler chicken, compared to a control group. Six hundred and twenty four chicks (Cobb 500) arriving to an experimental unit were randomly assigned into each treatment with four repetitions per treatment. The cecal content of 16 animals per treatment (n = 96) was used for DNA extraction and sequencing of the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene using Illumina technology. The use of antimicrobials induced significant changes in membership but not in structure of the cecal microbiota compared to the control group, suggesting a greater impact on the less abundant species of bacteria present in that environment. Halquinol was the only drug that did not affect microbial membership. Firmicutes comprised the major bacterial phylum present in the cecum of all groups. There was no statistical difference in relative abundances of the main phyla between treated animals and the control group (all P>0.05). Treatment with enramycin was associated with decreased richness and with lower relative abundance of unclassified Firmicutes, Clostridium XI, unclassified Peptostreptococcaceae (all P<0.001) and greater abundance of Clostridium XIVb (P = 0.004) and Anaerosporobacter spp. (P = 0.015), and treatment with bacitracin with greater relative abundance of Bilophila spp. (P = 0.004). Several bacterial genera were identified as representative of usage of each drug. This study used high throughput sequencing to characterize the impact of several antimicrobials in broiler chicken under controlled conditions and add new insights to the current knowledge on how AGPs affect the cecal microbiota of chicken.

Project description:Commercial poultry production is growing rapidly in Bangladesh to address the increasing demand for poultry meat and eggs. Challenges faced by producers include the occurrence of poultry diseases, which are usually treated or controlled by antimicrobials. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 57 commercial layer and 83 broiler farms in eight subdistricts of the Chattogram district, Bangladesh, to assess antimicrobial usage in relation to clinical signs observed in chicken flocks on these farms. Of the 140 commercial chicken farms, 137 (97.9%) used antimicrobials and 24 different antimicrobial agents were administered. On layer farms, the most commonly used antimicrobials were ciprofloxacin (37.0% of farms, 20/54), amoxicillin (33.3%, 18/54), and tiamulin (31.5%, 17/54), while on broiler farms, colistin (56.6%, 47/83), doxycycline (50.6%, 42/83), and neomycin (38.6%, 32/83) were most commonly administered. Only 15.3% (21/137) of farmers used antimicrobials exclusively for therapeutic purposes, while 84.7% (116/137) of farmers used them prophylactically, administering them either for prophylactic purposes only (22.6% of farmers, 31/137) or in combination with therapeutic purposes (62.1% of farmers, 85/137). About 83.3% (45/54) of layer farmers were selling eggs while antimicrobials were being administered compared to 36.1% (30/83) of the broiler farmers selling broiler chickens while administering antimicrobials. Overall, 75.2% (103/137) of farmers reported clinical signs for which they administered antimicrobials, while 24.8% (34/137) of farmers reported no clinical signs but still administered antimicrobials. Respiratory signs (71.8% of farms with clinical signs, 74/103) were most commonly reported, followed by enteric signs (32.0%, 33/103) and increased mortality (16.5%, 17/103). About 37.2% (51/137) of farmers bought antimicrobials exclusively from feed and chick traders, followed by veterinary medical stores (35.0%, 48/137). Purchasing antimicrobials from feed and chick traders was more common among broiler than layer farmers. It is recommended that commercial poultry farmers should keep records of antimicrobials used with dosage and duration of administration along with indication of use. This would allow farmers and veterinarians to review if antimicrobial usage had the desired effects and to evaluate the appropriate use of antimicrobial agents under an antimicrobial stewardship approach.

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Project description:Increasing efforts have been made in recent years to reduce antimicrobial use in animal production. The objective of this prospective study was to evaluate, in commercial broiler chicken farms, 2 antibiotic reduction strategies that eliminated the use of antibiotics important for human medicine, in comparison with the conventional use of antibiotics. On 7 broiler chicken farms, a house was allocated to the antibiotic reduction treatments for 6 consecutive flocks, whereas a similar house on the same premises was assigned to the conventional use of antibiotics (CONV) for 6 consecutive flocks. The antibiotic reduction strategies consisted of continuous in-feed use of ionophores (TX1) and continuous in-feed use of ionophores with butyric acid (TX2). In the 84 flocks, zootechnical performance was recorded, lesion scoring at 21 and 28 D of age was performed, and fecal samples were recovered during grow out for Eimeria spp. oocysts counts. There was no statistical difference between TX1, TX2, and CONV for weights at slaughter, feed conversion ratios, average daily gains, age at slaughter, total mortalities, and condemnations. The probability of identifying oocysts in the fecal samples significantly increased with the age of the flock, but there was no significant treatment effect between 7 and 16 D of age. At 19 D of age, the probability of a sample containing oocysts was higher in TX1 than in CONV, but TX2 was not statistically different from TX1 and CONV. Predicted oocysts per gram in CONV flocks were significantly lower between 22 and 34 D of age than in TX1 and TX2 flocks, whereas there were no significant differences between TX1 and TX2 for all ages. Lesion scoring of the gastrointestinal system showed no differences for coccidiosis scores between TX1, TX2, and CONV. No lesions of necrotic enteritis were observed. In conclusion, it was possible to adequately control intestinal diseases and maintain zootechnical performances by relying exclusively on ionophores, when compared with broiler chicken flocks using standard shuttle programs with antibiotic growth promoters.

Dataset Information

Impacts of Short-Term Antibiotic Withdrawal and Long-Term Judicious Antibiotic Use on Resistance Gene Abundance and Cecal Microbiota Composition on Commercial Broiler Chicken Farms in Quebec.

Publications

Impacts of Short-Term Antibiotic Withdrawal and Long-Term Judicious Antibiotic Use on Resistance Gene Abundance and Cecal Microbiota Composition on Commercial Broiler Chicken Farms in Québec.

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