The Effects of Agrimonia pilosa Ledeb, Anemone chinensis Bunge, and Smilax glabra Roxb on Broiler Performance, Nutrient Digestibility, and Gastrointestinal Tract Microorganisms.

Poultry farming is growing globally, particularly in developing countries, to meet the demands of growing populations for poultry meat and eggs. This is likely to lead to an increase in the use of antibiotics in poultry feed, thus contributing to the development and spread of antibiotic resistance which, poses a serious threat to human and animal health worldwide. One way of reducing this threat is to reduce the use of antibiotics in poultry production by finding effective and sustainable antibiotic alternatives that can be used to support poultry health and productivity. Therefore, this study evaluates the incorporation of three medicinal plants, Anemone chinensis Bunge, Smilax glabra Roxb, and Agrimonia pilosa Ledeb, in poultry feed on production performance, nutrient digestibility, and bacteria in the chicken caecum in a 35-day performance trial with 420-day-old male Ross 308 broilers. Groups of randomly selected chicks received one of six dietary treatments. These included five experimental diets of reduced nutrient specifications as a negative control (NC); with amoxicillin as a positive antibiotic control (PC1); with A. pilosa Ledeb (NC1); with A. chinensis Bunge (NC2); and with S. glabra Roxb (NC3). One other positive control diet contained the recommended nutrient specification (PC2). Weight gain and feed intake were measured weekly and used to calculate the feed conversion ratio as performance parameters. Bacteria were enumerated from chicken caecum using a traditional plating method and selective agar. S. glabra Roxb and A. chinensis Bunge showed comparable effects to amoxicillin with significantly increased weight gain in birds offered these diets, compared to those offered the negative control from days 0 to 35 (p < 0.001). S. glabra Roxb exhibited effects similar to the amoxicillin control group with an improved feed conversion ratio (p < 0.001). In addition, S. glabra Roxb decreased numbers of E. coli and Campylobacter spp. on days 21 (p < 0.05) and 35 (p < 0.01) and increased numbers of lactic acid bacteria comparable to the antibiotic group on days 14 (p < 0.001) and 35 (p < 0.01). The findings of this in vivo trial highlight the potential of S. glabra Roxb and A. chinensis Bunge as beneficial feed material to promote poultry health and productivity in the absence of antibiotics.

A reasonable correlation between cloacal and cecal microbiomes in broiler chickens.

Gut microbiota play an important role in animal health. For livestock, an understanding of the effect of husbandry interventions on gut microbiota helps develop methods that increase sustainable productivity, animal welfare, and food safety. Poultry microbiota of the mid-gut and hind-gut can only be investigated postmortem; however, samples from the terminal cloaca may be collected from live animals. This study tests whether cloacal microbiota reflect cecal microbiota in European broiler poultry by evaluating total and paired cecal and cloacal microbiomes from 47 animals. 16S amplicon libraries were constructed and sequenced with a MiSeq 250 bp PE read metric. The composition of cloacal and cecal microbiomes were significantly affected by the age and location of animals, but the effect was very small. Bacilli were relatively more abundant in ceca and Clostridia in cloaca. There was an overlap of 99.5% for the abundances and 59% for the types of taxa between cloacal and cecal communities, but the small fraction of rare nonshared taxa were sufficient to produce a signal for differentiation between cecal and cloacal communities. There was a significant positive correlation between specific taxa abundances in cloacal and cecal communities (Rho = 0.66, P = 2 × 10-16). Paired analyses revealed that cloacal communities were more closely related to cecal communities from the same individual than expected by chance. This study is in line with the only other study to evaluate the relationship between cecal and cloacal microbiomes in broiler poultry, but it extends previous findings by analyzing paired cecal-cloacal samples from the same birds and reveals that abundant bacterial taxa in ceca may be reasonably inferred by sampling cloaca. Together, the findings from Europe and Australasia demonstrate that sampling cloaca shows promise as a method to estimate cecal microbiota, and especially abundant taxa, from live broiler poultry in a manner which reduces cost and increases welfare for husbandry and research purposes.

Low Doses of Mycotoxin Mixtures below EU Regulatory Limits Can Negatively Affect the Performance of Broiler Chickens: A Longitudinal Study.

Several studies have reported a wide range of severe health effects as well as clinical signs, when livestock animals are exposed to high concentration of mycotoxins. However, little is known regarding health effects of mycotoxins at low levels. Thus, a long-term feeding trial (between May 2017 and December 2019) was used to evaluate the effect of low doses of mycotoxin mixtures on performance of broiler chickens fed a naturally contaminated diet. In total, 18 successive broiler performance trials were carried out during the study period, with approximately 2200 one-day-old Ross-308 chicks used for each trial. Feed samples given to birds were collected at the beginning of each trial and analysed for multi-mycotoxins using a validated LC-MS/MS method. Furthermore, parameters including feed intake, body weight and feed efficiency were recorded on a weekly basis. In total, 24 mycotoxins were detected in samples analysed with deoxynivalenol (DON), zearalenone (ZEN), fumonisins (FBs), apicidin, enniatins (ENNs), emodin and beauvericin (BEV), the most prevalent mycotoxins. Furthermore, significantly higher levels (however below EU guidance values) of DON, ZEN, FBs, BEV, ENNs and diacetoxyscirpenol (DAS) were detected in 6 of the 18 performance trials. A strong positive relationship was observed between broilers feed efficiency and DON (R2 = 0.85), FBs (R2 = 0.53), DAS (R2 = 0.86), ZEN (R2 = 0.92), ENNs (R2 = 0.60) and BEV (R2 = 0.73). Moreover, a three-way interaction regression model revealed that mixtures of ZEN, DON and FBs (p = 0.01, R2 = 0.84) and ZEN, DON and DAS (p = 0.001, R2 = 0.91) had a statistically significant interaction effect on the birds' feed efficiency. As farm animals are often exposed to low doses of mycotoxin mixtures (especially fusarium mycotoxins), a cumulative risk assessment in terms of measuring and mitigating against the economic, welfare and health impacts is needed for this group of compounds.

Maternal communication style, problem-solving and dietary adherence in young children with type 1 diabetes.

The incidence of type 1 diabetes (T1D) in young children is increasing markedly however young children have been overlooked in paediatric adherence research despite the unique challenges their care presents. We investigated the relation between maternal communication style and adherence to the dietary regimen in 40 children with T1D, aged 2-8 years, and their mothers. Mothers completed measures of children's sugar consumption, parent-child communication quality, and child psychological functioning. Mothers and children engaged in a videotaped problem-solving task related to the dietary regimen, with maternal utterances analysed for behavioural control style (e.g., commands versus suggestions) and cognitive complexity (e.g., provision of labels versus questions). Maternal communications which engaged children, behaviourally and cognitively, in the task were associated with better adherence, medical, communication quality, and child adjustment outcomes. We conclude that adherence and health (medical and psychological) are optimized when young children are given opportunities to participate in their care.

Predictors of treatment adherence in young children with type 1 diabetes.

AIM: This paper reports a study to investigate whether diabetes-specific, demographic and psychosocial variables predict adherence in young children with type 1 diabetes. BACKGROUND: Paediatric diabetes rates are increasing worldwide; however, young children are neglected in treatment adherence research, despite the importance of adherence for health. Greater understanding of adherence in this group could enhance nurses' ability to provide care tailored to families' needs. METHOD: A cross-sectional study was carried out between 2001 and 2003 with 65 children aged 2-8 years and their mothers in Britain. Mothers were interviewed about children's diabetes care, nutritional analyses were conducted and mothers completed assessments of diabetes knowledge, parenting stress, family functioning and child psychological adjustment. Demographic and medical information was collected from patient records. FINDINGS: Consistent with older populations, blood glucose monitoring and dietary regimens showed greater adherence variability than injection frequency and injection time consistency. Better maternal diabetes knowledge correlated with less injection time variability, more frequent blood glucose monitoring, lower percentage energy intake from extrinsic sugars, lower glycosylated haemoglobin levels and fewer relationship difficulties. Longer diabetes duration, greater injection time variability and higher percentage energy intake from extrinsic sugars predicted less frequent blood glucose monitoring. More relationship difficulties and less frequent blood glucose monitoring predicted higher percentage energy intake from extrinsic sugars. CONCLUSIONS: Nurses can facilitate treatment adherence through provision of educational, practical and socio-emotional support. Nursing interventions should target blood glucose monitoring and dietary regimens in particular, and nurses should be sensitive to the various caretaking challenges presented to parents by different components of the diabetes regimen.

Two hundred and thirteen cases of marijuana toxicoses in dogs.

Marijuana (Cannabis sativa) is a commonly used recreational drug among humans; animals may be exposed following ingestion or accidental inhalation of smoke. From January 1998 to January 2002, 213 incidences were recorded of dogs that developed clinical signs following oral exposure to marijuana, with 99% having neurologic signs, and 30% exhibiting gastrointestional signs. The marijuana ingested ranged from 1/2 to 90 g. The lowest dose at which signs occurred was 84.7 mg/kg and the highest reported dose was 26.8 g/kg. Onset of signs ranged from 5 min to 96 h, with most signs occurring within 1 to 3 h after ingestion. The signs lasted from 30 min to 96 h. Management consisted of decontamination, sedation (with diazepam as drug of choice), fluid therapy, thermoregulation and general supportive care. All followed animals made full recoveries.