Attendees throughout India learn strategies and solutions to prevent emerging diseases
June 2015–Dr. Mohammad Hafez, Managing Director of the Institute of Poultry Diseases at the Free University Berlin – Germany presented global trends and insights across India to more than 400 producers, Nutritionists and farmers in the Kemin Kontact series.
Kemin conducted 4 Kemin Kontact seminars across the country that include Pune, Bangalore, Coimbatore and Hyderabad.
“This was an excellent learning experience and we got lot of insights said a Poultry producer”. Dr. Hafez is a renowned veterinary poultry specialist, veterinary microbiologist and a Poultry disease diagnostic professional. As an author of more than 48 book, 212 scientific journal articles and more than 566 scientific presentations to his credit, he is recognized as “the expert” in poultry disease diagnostics and control.He has dedicated his whole life to poultry and is widely appreciated for his contribution to the field of research.
Proper disease management in poultry significantly improves farm profitability. However, knowing the various threats, disease agents and how to prevent them is significantly more elusive. That’s why Kemin organized a series of Kemin Kontact programs with Dr. Hafez as key note speaker across India
to provide poultry farmers access to him among other leading experts. The presentations and discussions shared actionable insights on how toreduce poultry diseases through nutrition, hygiene and poultry management .
The major adverse effects a producer or farmer incurs in the course of disease outbreak are significant – financial losses, low production performances resulting in a reduction in hatchability, slower growth rate and smaller birds, decreased Feed Conversion Ratios (FCR), poor product quality and devastating mortality rates are among the many ways producers and their flocks are impacted.
Where should producers and farmers begin when there is so much at stake? “Invest in the most important aspect of poultry management — training and educating your employees and yourselves on risk reduction behaviours and how best practices are changing farming globally,” advised Dr. Hafez, Head of Institute of Poultry Diseases at University of Berlin.
“Evolution or change of an existing pathogenic agent can result in a new infection and these infections can be transmitted to poultry vertically or horizontally, by direct contact with birds, and through contaminated equipment” said Dr. Hafez. “The causative agents such as, E. coli, salmonella, Eimeria, Mycoplasma Galliseptum, Mycoplasma Synoviae,avian influenza (AI) virus, and others, result in diseases such as high pathogenic AI, leucosis, Newcastle disease and low pathogenic AI,” he further added.
The emergence of new and unforeseen diseases as well as new legislation and regulatory changes will remain serious challenges for poultry producers. “In the future, only few authorized pharmaceutical and veterinary products will be available for the treatment of food producing animals. Therefore, adopting good management practices and development of efficient vaccines against bacterial infections will lead to a reduction of antibiotics and subsequently reduce the development of resistant bacteria,” added Dr. Hafez.
Mr. SamrajJeyachandran, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing at Kemin Animal Nutrition and Health Division in India emphasized, “Treating diseases alone will not help to overcome the wide arrary of health challenges. ,We know vaccinationshave not been enough to manage the situation and it’s time to focus on building“immunocompetence” of the bird through ingredients, nutrition and overall poultry management.”
The event also briefed upon the company’s immuno competence programs such as Sal CURB®as an antimicrobial for feed, Acid Lac™ WConcentrateliquid for water, KemTRACE® Chromium and CLOSTAT™ for minimizing the antibiotic usage and improving the immunity of chicken. In this interactive information sharing platform,the Kemin Kontact seminar captured the audience attention with presentations on regional and global trends, best practices and time for questions and answers from all of the experts.
