Antibiotic-free poultry successfully reared in Singapore

Kee Song Brothers Poultry, in Singapore, has become the first Southeast Asian company to successfully breed chickens on a large scale without the use of antibiotics.

Over the period from May to August Kee Song conducted a study, inviting six international companies in the food, agricultural and pharmaceutical industries to participate. The study involved breeding 180,000 chickens on its Johor farm, using technology developed by Dr Chia Tet Fatt, Director of Otemchi Biotechnologies.

The results showed that chickens which were bred using its own strains of lactobacillus – a good bacteria commonly used in the production of yoghurt and cheese – had a higher survival rate of 98-99% compared to chickens fed with antibiotics, which had a survival rate of 95%. The former were also less likely to suffer from diarrhoea.

According to Dr Chia Tet Fatt even though antibiotics are widely used by poultry farmers to yield plumper chickens that are more disease-resistant, research has shown that some bacteria or ‘superbugs’ in these chickens will develop resistance to antibiotics in the long run.