Probiotics and Your Flock

Gut health is crucial for all of us and your chooks are no exception. Having a balance of good and bad microorganisms is essential to maintaining a good gut environment and general wellbeing. Like all other species, dealing with stress, disease and environmental pressures take a lot of energy and nutrients away from day to day maintenance, and starts to compromise our general health. Good gut health is also pivotal to protect your birds from harmful parasites and other microorganisms that exist naturally in their environment.

Providing your birds with a probiotic is one way you can support and aid your bird’s health and stability. Probiotics are beneficial living bacteria that when supplied in adequate levels in the gut can aid and prevent some illnesses and promote a healthy digestive tract and immune system. Fundamentally these friendly, good bacteria when supplied through your birds’ diet aid in digestion and the absorption of nutrients, which encourage a more consistent egg supply.

The main function probiotics are delivering to your birds is not to colonise and take over but to interact with the host specific gut microflora that already exists. Keeping a fine balance is an art, but by providing her with the right tools her body is equipped and ready to respond if required. Probiotics have profound benefits throughout the body especially in times of strain to not only help your birds with recovery but improve nutrient utilisation. When nutrients aren’t being wasted or used for processes like repair, more nutrients are freed up and can be diverted to other areas such as feathers and improving egg shell quality.

Traditionally probiotics have been presented in the form of fermented milk or vegetables, but not all forms are equal. The majority of probiotics are species specific so different strains relate to different animals, a probiotic recommended for poultry is recommended. There are a few options, depending on what best suits you and your birds, but be mindful when feeding items such as yoghurts that they can easily spoil and quickly become a food safety risk. Yoghurt’s well-known probiotic properties can benefit your chooks, however please note they aren’t specifically formulated for chickens and the viable counts (concentration of bacteria – log cfu) are very low in comparison to a dedicated probiotic product. It is widely accepted that feeding a probiotic consistently into your bird’s diet is the best way to make sure she is getting the most out of every mouth full of feed she can.

Barastoc Poultry have selected Biomin’s Poultry Star®, which is a well-defined poultry specific product, with a combination of pre and probiotics. Biomin’s Poultry Star® is a great option which has been developed with extensive scientific research into poultry gut health. It is poultry specific and therefore a unique formulation for laying hens, with fantastic protection against intestinal nasties like E.coli, Salmonella and Campylobacter.

Giving your flock their gut health supplements is easy. For more information on Barastoc Poultry products please visit www.barastocpoultry.com.au