A healthy gut is the foundation of animal health and performance, highlights Dr Aldo Rossi, director of Veterinary Services at Amlan International. Here he discusses the road to a healthy gut in livestock with a holistic approach, from improving feed safety and combatting pathogens to tackling mycotoxin contamination the right way.
There has been a clear shift toward a holistic gut health approach across livestock sectors, especially dairy cattle, poultry and swine. This reflects a broader understanding that gut function, microbial balance and immune health are deeply interconnected, and that a healthy gut is the foundation for overall health and performance.
A drawback of traditional gut health treatments in production systems is that they often focus specifically on pathogenic bacterial challenges, and in many cases, specific bacterial issues, like Salmonella and E.coli. While these are serious concerns, gut health is influenced by other factors as well, such as mycotoxins, which are prevalent in animal feed.
A holistic approach combines 3 strategies.
- It reduces the synergistic effects of mycotoxin-contaminated feeds with products like toxin binders.
- It minimises the interactive effects between mycotoxins and harmful bacteria with broad-spectrum binding solutions.
- It supports intestinal cells to strengthen the barrier function and prime the animal’s natural immune defence.
Maintaining a healthy gut improves nutrient absorption, prevents systemic spread of pathogenic challenges and their toxins, and reduces the overall risk of systemic infection across all species.
Why is there such a high number of global feed samples detected with mycotoxin contamination (94%)? How can this percentage be decreased?
The rate is very high because many factors contribute to feed contamination. Mycotoxins – which come from fungal growth in grains and forages grown as feed – can occur in the environment during the growing season, as moisture levels or humidity increase, and during harvesting, drying and storage.
The simple truth is that it is nearly impossible to eliminate mycotoxins in feed. Proactive measures and effective management strategies can help. Harvest forages and grains appropriately, while maintaining control over moisture and pH levels during storage. Additionally, develop a surveillance programme to monitor the toxin load of grains and forages.
Utilising clay-based binders in animal feeds is a final opportunity to help mitigate these toxins by binding and removing them from the digestive system. This helps to prevent their absorption and eventual toxic effect, which can negatively affect key performance metrics like milk production, reproduction, liveability and food safety.
Being vigilant and aware are a producer’s best strategy for managing mycotoxins. Producers should adopt appropriate harvest, storage and delivery protocols for feed to reduce mycotoxin contamination. Producers should also understand that the threat level always exists, and proactive measures are essential to quickly respond to increasing levels of risk.
Managing these challenges with clay-based products is the key to protecting animal health and maintaining performance.
A single toxin strategy is an approach that targets just one specific mycotoxin, not a full spectrum. In the dairy industry, the mycotoxin aflatoxin gets a lot of focus because it is regulated and specified limits are imposed on milk for human consumption. However, as noted previously, almost 100% of the feed sampled globally over the past few years is contaminated with 2 or more mycotoxins. Targeting this toxin alone is not effective because the remaining toxins still present a significant risk to the animal.
When multiple mycotoxins are present, their combined effects are additive or synergistic, increasing overall toxicity and risk to the animal. This means that even lower levels of individual mycotoxins can become harmful when they occur together.
A second major concern is the co-challenge of mycotoxins and harmful bacteria. Pathogens like E. coli, Salmonella, and Clostridium not only cause direct damage but also release toxins that intensify the problem. The interaction between mycotoxins and bacterial toxins further amplifies these negative effects.
The results can lead to abortions, poor conception rates, mastitis, reduced milk production and mortality, among others. Using broad-spectrum binders – not just traditional mycotoxin binders – can help mitigate these combined threats and support better overall herd health and performance.
Yes and no. Over the years there have been major improvements in managing gut health in the livestock sector with new information, technology, and products. However, looking back, many of the challenges we face today are the same challenges we have dealt with for decades. So there still is room for improvement.
The impact of these challenges is becoming more critical, too, as herd sizes increase and margins decrease. Ongoing vigilance is necessary to better understand how these threats affect animal health so that effective prevention and mitigation can become a consistent part of daily management practices.
Producers should keep these points in mind:
- Support beneficial bacteria, not just pathogens: Many traditional treatments for bacterial challenges are broad-spectrum, which means they affect even the beneficial bacteria found in the gut. Targeting only the harmful bacteria reduces pathogenic load within the intestinal tract. This allows beneficial bacteria, like Lactobacillus, to thrive with less microbial competition. This helps to support a balanced and healthy natural microbiome, which in turn improves digestion and nutrient absorption.
- Support natural immunity: Sick animals facing challenges are often at a disadvantage when it comes to an immune response. An unbalanced immune response caused by mycotoxins and damage within the intestinal tract utilises a tremendous amount of energy. This further diverts resources away from performance metrics, like weight gain. Feed additives with ingredients designed to support immune cell modulation or stimulate phagocytic response help to optimise the animal’s natural immune response.
- Direct enterocyte support: The enterocytes of the intestinal tract face harsh conditions during a disease challenge, leading to damage that decreases their functionality and integrity. Feed additives designed to energise these cells support cellular repair, replication and overall integrity. This helps to restore damaged cells and to reduce the ability of pathogenic toxins to spread systemically, while also optimising nutrient absorption, both key in maintaining production metrics.
I see new technologies, application methods, testing platforms and biosecurity tools continually being introduced to help manage threats like biotoxins. Advances in screening molecules for their effectiveness, along with genetic improvements in crops and animals, will also help to reduce risks to animal health. However, fundamental management practices – biosecurity, feed ingredient testing and the use of toxin binders – will continue to form the foundation of any effective animal health programme.
