Effect of a commercial competitive exclusion culture (Preempt) on mortality and horizontal transmission of Salmonella gallinarum in broiler chickens.

A commercial competitive exclusion (CE) culture (PREEMPT) was evaluated for its ability to decrease mortality during the first 10-12 days posthatch resulting from the causative agent of fowl typhoid, Salmonella gallinarum. In the first experiment, chicks provided the CE culture on day of hatch and challenged with 10(5) S. gallinarum on day 3 had a significant decrease in mortality compared with non-CE-treated S. gallinarum-challenged chicks in all four replicates. Mortality for control chicks when averaged across all four replicates was 74% compared with 7.5% for the CE-treated chicks. A second experiment was performed that was designed to measure the efficacy of the CE culture in decreasing the horizontal transmission of this pathogen from infected to uninfected chicks when commingled. Day-of-hatch chicks that were directly infected (seeders) with 10(5) S. gallinarum and provided no CE culture averaged 86% S. gallinarum organ positive and 80% mortality during the first 12 days posthatch across four replicates. Untreated contact (not directly infected) chicks that were commingled with the seeder chicks averaged 84% S. gallinarum organ positive and 54% mortality, and the commingled CE-treated contact chicks (provided CE culture on day of hatch) average 35% S. gallinarum organ positive and 9% mortality during the same time period. These results are of importance to the poultry industry in geographic areas where poultry production is adversely affected by fowl typhoid and indicate that treating newly hatched chicks with this commercial CE culture may be a novel way of decreasing economic losses associated with this highly pathogenic organism.