Reduction of Salmonellosis Using Competitive Exclusion Individually and in Combination with Organic Acids in the Experimental Broiler Chicks

Salmonellosis in broiler chickens poses a serious danger to the global poultry sector. Recently, the increasing of antimicrobial resistance in poultry farms requires an alternatives approaches to overcome this problem. Therefore, the influences of competitive exclusion culture (CE) and organic acids as substitutes for antibiotics were investigated at this study. A total of 200 diseased broiler birds were collected from 50 farms located in Egypt's Dakahlia Governorate and examined for Salmonella infection. Salmonella was isolated at rate of 24% (12 isolates) and differentiated serologically into S. Typhimurium, S. Enteritidis, S. Santiago and S. Kentucky. The antimicrobial resistance to nalidixic acid, amoxicillin, Ampicillin/sulbactam, streptomycin and tetracycline was recorded at percentages of 100%, 100%, 83.3%, 75% and 75% respectively using disc diffusion method. The effectiveness of organic acids mixture and CE supplementation on S. Typhimurium (ST) was studied in vivo using 50 broiler chicks (one day old) (5 groups); Group (1) non treated, non infected group (negative control); group (2) challenged with ST (positive control); group (3) supplemented with CE then challenged with ST; group (4) supplemented with organic acids then challenged with ST; group (5) supplemented with both of and organic acids then challenged with ST. The recorded moratlies in group 2 was 20% and no mortalities were repored in the other experimental groups. No clinical signs were noticed in groups 1 and 5. In group 4, slight diarrhea was recorded at (4dp). The findings in this study showed that the supplementation with CE only/and with organic acids (groups 3 and 5 respectively) prevented ST colonization in chicks cecum. A reduction in ST cecal colonization was reported in group (4) when compared with the positive control (group 2). The supplementation of chicks with organic acids with CE prevented ST colonization in the cecum and improved the growth performance parameters. The findings of this study suggest that supplementating of both organic acids and CE in broiler farms could be a bio-protective and substitute solution for combating multidrug resistant Salmonella and improving growth performance in poultry farms.