Alternative Strategies for Salmonella Control in Poultry

Salmonella enterica serovars continue to be among the most important foodborne pathogens worldwide due to the considerable human rates of illness reported and the wide range of hosts that are colonized by members of this genus, which serve as vectors and reservoirs for spreading these agents to animal and human populations. Furthermore, public concern for the appearance of resistant strains to many antibiotics, particularly among zoonotic pathogens such as common Salmonella isolates, is also challenging the poultry industry to find alternative means of control (Boyle, Bishop, Grassl, & Finlay, 2007). For example, in January 2006 Europe implemented a complete ban on growth promoting antibiotics in animal feed (Anadon, Martinez-Larranaga, & Aranzazu Martinez, 2006). Thus, while attempting to control human foodborne pathogens poultry producers are simultaneously challenged to improve production in the face of increasing feed costs while using fewer antibiotics due to increased restriction of antimicrobial usage. These regulations were implemented because of export market restrictions and consumer or customer preferences in local markets. For these reasons continued research on sustainable alternatives to antibiotic growth promoters for animal production such as probiotics or direct fed microbials (DFM) consisting of live or dead organisms and spores (Patterson & Burkholder, 2003), non-traditional chemicals (Ko, Mendoncam, Ismail, & Ahn, 2009), bacteriophages (Andreatti Filho et al., 2007; Bielke, Higgins, Donoghue, Donoghue, & Hargis, 2007; J. P. Higgins et al., 2005; J. P. Higgins, Andreatti Filho et al., 2008), organic acids and other plant extracts and essential oils (Aengwanich & Suttajit, 2010; Allen-Hall, Arnason, Cano, & Lafrenie, 2010; Bagchi et al., 2000; Kubena, Byrd, Young, & Corrier, 2001; Over, Hettiarachchy, Johnson, & Davis, 2009; Van Immerseel et al., 2006), and vaccines (Kremer et al., 2011; O’Meara et al., 2010; Wolfenden et al., 2010; Van Immerseel et al., 2005; Dueger et al., 2001, 2003) are increasingly more important. These potential solutions have emerged in the last decade as tools that could be potentially useful in the near future for pathogen control and poultry performance improvement. Probiosis, although not a new concept, has only recently begun to receive an increasing level of scientific interest. In agriculture, probiotics and DFMs used in animal feed are becoming accepted as potential alternatives to antibiotics for use as growth promoters, and in select cases, for control of specific enteric pathogens (Anadon, Rosa Martinez-Larranaga, & Aranzazu Martinez, 2006; Boyle et al., 2007; Cartman, La Ragione, & Woodward, 2008; Vila et al., 2009; L. D. Williams, Burdock, Jimenez, & Castillo, 2009). For these reasons the