article of interest 4 imu holders/followers

Due to the dangers to humans caused by the use of antibiotics in cattle and poultry, the U.S. food and drug administration has started a major revision of its guidelines for approving and monitoring the use of antibiotics in farm animals. Scientists report that antibiotic resistant bacteria from animals can cause illness in humans via their contact with an animal carrying a disease-causing resistant organism, or by handling contaminated meat or by eating such meat when it has not been adequately cooked. Sometimes the illness can be difficult or impossible to treat because both the old and the new medical antibiotic drugs are losing their effectiveness as a result of having been routinely used in livestock for years.

Primary breeders found that giving their chicks antibiotics helped accelerate their growth and combat disease. For a while this seemed to provide the solution to their problems and was probably expedient considering that most of the primary breeders are connected with pharmaceutical companies. In the past, primary breeders would routinely dip eggs in a solution of the antibiotic Tylosin. Today they are routinely using in ovo vaccination - Baytril is injected into the egg, before the chick has even hatched. Often or routinely 17-18 days into the development of the embryo Baytril is mixed into the Marek vaccination. Powerful Excenel is injected into the chicks at age 1 day and after about 24 hours there are no traces of it left in the chick.

Since this appears to be the conventional idea of how to solve problems, one is tempted to consider the question of which came first? The chicken or the egg?
Considering that during the process of evolution, egg- laying fish evolved into reptiles and that fowl evolved from the egg-laying reptiles, primary breeders should be working to improve hatching eggs rather than injecting them with foreign matter. What will be done when the in ovo method also eventually loses its effectiveness?

No matter how big a company is, it cannot fool all of the people, all of the time. The more the consumers become aware of the effects of what is being done to their food and the state of it, the less desire they will have to consume products that are so contaminated. In addition to growing consumer resistance, various types of restrictions will inevitably be instituted by governmental health, agricultural and trade authorities. Recent examples of this kind of effect may be seen in the story of Mad Cow Disease and British beef, the destruction of all the poultry in Hong Kong and the mass destruction of pigs in Malaysia.

An expert report that was recently published by the U.K. ministry of agriculture concludes that medicinal and growth-promoting antimicrobial drugs used on farms can lead to resistant bacteria contaminating food and infecting humans. The use of antibiotics on farms leads to resistant strains of bacteria, not only of the disease causing variety but also of the harmless bacteria that live in the gut. Resistant bacteria such as Salmonella or Campylobacter can be spread to humans via meat and eggs. Another danger is that poultry bacteria transfer their trait of resistance to human disease agents. This has already happened with animal and human Enterococci.

After the Second World War in the late 1940’s, a few large commercial primary breeders began to buy up and take over most of the smaller primary breeders. The resulting few (only 15 worldwide), huge companies have followed a mistaken concept in breeding that has led to the creation of irreversible damage. In their enthusiastic race to compete with one another they have concentrated on improving rate of growth and feed conversion whilst failing to keep a balance with other factors. Most of these major industrial breeders are backed by big pharmaceutical concerns. This inevitably leads to a conflict of interests between the breeders’ profitability and the health of those who consume their products. Instead of preserving the old healthy breeds and refining them by selection, they have weakened the strains in general. They achieved this by misguidedly attempting to solve various problems with, amongst other things, pharmaceutical drugs. This was an effective way of preserving and perpetuating weaker breeds.
Care and consideration for the weak and needy are admirable human qualities but they are unhealthy principles to go by when breeding poultry.

The results are that poultry today suffers from many common health problems such as leukosis, heart attacks, leg tendon problems, low resistance to disease and environment and Chronic Respiratory Diseases (CRD).
Apart from using antibiotics to combat CRD since the 1960’s, primary breeders have not made any real developments in their approach to dealing with it. Professor Harvey Jodier of Athens, Georgia developed an excellent method of prevention, which involves heating the eggs, but at the time, the breeders found it more convenient to dip their eggs in Tylosin.

In Sweden there was an attempt to produce broilers bio-securely but it failed miserably because standard breeds were used. Even the glamorous concept of free-range rearing is not a solution unless the ancient strains that provide the basic material are properly bred at the primary breeding stage. It is also a very cumbersome and expensive way of producing chicken meat.

Kabir Chicks Ltd. was founded nearly 50 years ago, in time to select and refine good breeds according to its own independent policy. The company has remained true to its ideals over the years during a period in which the world scale conglomerate companies have caused irreversible damage to avian genetic lines. Thus today, all Kabir’s breeds can be bred and reared without the need for antibiotics. However, the most startling fact of all is that these breeds can be raised using industrial methods of production. This means higher profits and lower costs.
We advise our customers regarding the rearing of our bio-secure White Industrial Broilers thus: “with reduced saturated fat for the consumer’s health. In order to produce these broilers without antibiotics, the growth promoting ingredients should be eliminated from the feed because they also contain antibiotics. This will delay the growth of the broilers by 1 day.” We also have various alternative solutions in the form of natural feed or drinking water additives for natural growth programs, using for example, garlic powder, onions, herbs and other spices. These can be used beneficially with our strains.