Ihsig announces its first international symposium

The Intestinal Health Scientific Interest Group (ihsig) will hold its first international symposium addressing key issues for poultry veterinarians, poultry producers, scientists and regulatory authorities related to intestinal health management. The symposium will be March 28-29 at Het Pand, Onderbergen in Ghent, Belgium.

Today, most poultry producers are aware of the need to decrease the use of antimicrobial drugs because of growing consumer demand and governmental pressure to raise poultry without antibiotics. Concerns about antibiotic resistance have also urged the poultry industry to seek other alternatives for managing poultry production.

Despite this trend, intestinal health problems, such as dysbiosis and subclinical necrotic enteritis, continue to be leading health problems of economic importance in broiler flocks worldwide. Therefore, understanding, controlling and managing enteritis must occur in order to raise chickens without antibiotics. Consequently, the role of the veterinary profession in poultry production is changing. The role of the farm vet is transforming from a reactive role to a proactive animal health consultant.

The ihsig symposium is designed to address the challenges facing poultry veterinarians and producers as the industry strives to address intestinal health issues in a proactive manner. International speakers will provide information on the intestinal microbiota composition and its effects on the host response, and how this relates to optimal animal performance. Overviews on the current, most important intestinal health problems will be introduced with information about how these gut health problems can be controlled using non-antibiotic alternatives. An update on feed additive legislation will also be discussed.

The second day of the symposium will be a hands-on workshop, focused on gut lesion scoring in broiler chickens. During the symposium, time is foreseen for networking, to exchange ideas with speakers and visitors. Golden sponsors of the event are Kemin and Food2Know.

More information, including the symposium program and practical arrangements are available at www.ihsig.com/events.