Stress: The Silent Killer of Productivity

By Dr David Isaac DVM MRCVS MANZCVS

 

You would have heard that stress is a silent killer as chronic stress can lead to physical and mental health complications.  There are numerous studies that show chronic stress can lead to poor health and drop in productivity in humans. Animals too face similar outcome when exposed to stress.

Commercial poultry productions are faced with a variety of stress elements; including environmental, nutritional, and internal stress, which decrease production and reproductive performance and affect the health status of poultry birds (Surai and Fisinin, 2016). Starting from the hatchery, the chicks are stressed-out by

• Noise,
• Conveyor movements,
• Vaccinations,
• Temperature fluctuations,
• Feed and water access delays,
• Long transport to farms.

 

In addition, this throughout their life at the farm, they face multiple stresses such as heat stress, stocking density, variation in nutrition etc.

Farming operations continuously strive to set up strategies to minimise these stressful conditions to improve productivity. There are some new management tools and animal health products that can assist with this strategy. One of the new tools is a gel spraying system, called Gel-Pac – designed specifically for application of vaccines, probiotics, and nutrients at the hatchery.

This allows early and effective uptake of the active(s) on day one, with minimal stress to the chicks. Gel-Pac contains a new generation stabiliser to insulate sensitive respiratory vaccines and probiotics from the threats of decay by minerals in tap-water or well-water, chlorine, other vaccine preservatives, pH, and osmotic pressure. The stabilising properties in Gel-Pac is also available for application of in-water vaccines.

Vac-Pac Plus International is a new generation vaccine stabiliser that protects vaccines from the triple threat- oxidizers in water, pH imbalance and low tonicity, that are key risks that can inactivate live vaccines, making them worthless. It provides significant advances over lesser alternatives such as effervescent powders and tablets or animal-derived milk proteins. Vac-Pac Plus is more convenient for the user because it is highly soluble, provides instant protection, does not contain strong effervescing acids and more dust-free.

 

During periods of stress and vaccination, it is important to provide the immune system with the right nutrients. Vitoselen is a liquid supplement containing Vitamin E and Selenium, given in drinking water during periods of stressful conditions. These nutrients support the immune system to manage stress effectively.

Some of the stressful conditions such as mycotoxins in feed or high energy feed can lead to liver dysfunction. As the liver plays a key role in many physiological processes, it is critical to support the liver health. Formula HP is a highly stable liquid supplement that supports liver health via improved fatty acid metabolism, production, and excretion of bile acids as well as detoxifying function of the liver.

These valuable products are now available from BEC Feed Solutions Indonesia. We now have a range of Animal Health products to assist in managing stress and improving productivity.

Come and see us at ILDEX at G15 from 9-11^th November 2022 and have a chat with our team to discuss how these products could improve your farms productivity and animal health.