Poultry Gut Health: Pt. 1 - Stressors

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It's obvious that the gut turns food into fuel. But did you know that most issues in poultry health can be traced back to gut health in one way or another? From water quality to biosecurity, nearly any issue relates to the intestinal tract.

Previously, we've covered the most important part of a bird's life: the first three days. Birds develop rapidly over the first week after hatch. The health of the bird's gut in these key formational days will set the stage for the rest of its life. The longer the intestinal tract is, the stronger the immune system, the better it is at resisting disease and absorbing nutrients, leading to improved health throughout the grow out.

The biggest threat to gut health and a strong immune system that you can control is stress. The more you can reduce stress, the better you can protect your flock's gut health. But how are they connected?

When birds are under stress, the cohesion of cells in the gut comes apart on a microscopic level. This causes what we call "leaky gut." The lack of cohesion allows gut microbiota to escape, or "leak," into other parts of the body, which can cause serious issues. Take kinky back for example—this debilitating disease can be caused by gut bacteria reaching the spine and causing an abscess.

You can control stress by checking its sources: excessive noise, extremely hot conditions, extremely cold conditions, a feed outage or poor water quality. These can all cause stress in your birds (remember those leaky intestinal microbiota?) and therefore threaten their gut immune system.

It's important to remember that you can't see the instant impact of good poultry gut health. Sometimes the evidence of your actions working is the lack of proof—the absence of disease and mortality is the evidence of your efforts to protect healthy intestinal microbiota paying off! Promoting good gut health is key to the feed conversion, healthy digestion and absorption and profit on your farm.

Many farmers we know like to boost their poultry's gastrointestinal tract with a probiotic like Big Ole Bird. This liquid supplement adds beneficial bacteria and organic acids to the gut microbiome, helping birds fight pathogenic bacteria and increasing nutrient absorption. This increased intestinal health leads to better feed conversion, lower mortality and better profits for you.

Learn more about Big Ole Bird Probiotics for Poultry here: https://www.southlandorganics.com/pro...

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]!