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Role Of Distillers Dried Grains with Solubles (DDGS) In Necrotic Enteritis Development

By Kenneth S. Macklin

Necrotic enteritis is a serious issue for the poultry industry. In the near future it may become even more of a problem with reduced use of antibiotics/anticoccidials in poultry feed. The use of dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) in poultry diets has increased as the availability of this reasonably priced feed ingredient has risen over the past several years. Preliminary research conducted in our laboratories had implied that feeding DDGS might lead to an increase in necrotic enteritis development.

The objective of this proposal was to determine the role, if any, of DDGS in necrotic enteritis development. To accomplish this, two experiments were performed. In the first experiment birds were fed a standard corn soy diet that had either 7.5 or 15 % DDGS included in the diet. Birds were then challenged, first with a coccidia cocktail and then four days later with Clostridium perfringens over three consecutive days. Ten days after the coccidia cocktail was administered, the birds were necropsied. During the necropsy necrotic enteritis and coccidiosis lesions were scored, and samples were collected for C. perfringens recovery. In addition, feed conversion, body weight and mortality data were collected. Utilizing the results from the first study, a second experiment was performed using the most detrimental level of DDGS (15%) and three different challenge levels (low, medium and high) of C. perfringens. The goal of this experiment was to determine if DDGS influenced the severity or incidence of necrotic enteritis development with these three different levels of C. perfringens. The same experimental measurements were collected in this experiment as in the first.

The first experiment did not clearly define the relationship between feeding DDGS and necrotic enteritis development. What was obvious, though, was that the treatment group fed the 15% DDGS diet had a significantly worse 15-28 day adjusted feed conversion ratio (AFCR) than the group fed the diet that did not contain DDGS. Though not significant, the group fed the intermediate DDGS diet (7.5%) had six points higher AFCR than the group fed the control diet. This is important because the 15-28 day period is when the birds were challenged with coccidia and C. perfringens. Based on these as well as previous results from our labs, it was concluded that 15% DDGS was more likely to have an effect on necrotic enteritis development.

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