Dietary Inclusion of a -Derived Postbiotic Is Associated with Lower Burden in Broiler Chickens on a Commercial Farm in Honduras

Postbiotic feed additives may aid foodborne pathogen reduction during poultry rearing. The study objective was to evaluate a postbiotic additive in parallel to an industry control diet and the subsequent associated burden of on a single, commercial broiler farm in Honduras. Twelve houses were matched and assigned the standard diet (CON) or standard diet plus postbiotic (SCFP). New litter was placed in each house and retained across flock cycles with sampling prior to each chick placement and three consecutive rearing cycles. At ~33-34 days, 25 ceca were collected on-farm from each house, treatment, and cycle. prevalence in litter for CON (30.6%) and SCFP (27.8%) were equivalent; however, load within positive samples was lower ( = 0.04) for SCFP (3.81 log MPN/swab) compared to CON (5.53 log10 MPN/swab). Cecal prevalence of was lower ( = 0.0006) in broilers fed SCFP (3.4%) compared to CON (12.2%). load within positive ceca were numerically reduced ( = 0.121) by 1.45 log MPN/g for SCFP (2.41 log MPN/g) over CON (3.86 log MPN/g). Estimated burden was lower ( = 0.003) for SCFP flocks (3.80 log MPN) compared to CON (7.31 log MPN). These data demonstrate the preharvest intervention potential of postbiotics to reduce in broiler chickens.