Data from breeder hens and chicks are particularly critical for the development of vitamin B2 recommendations for organic poultry. To test safe thresholds of supplementation, 100 breeder hens (Hubbard JA 57 K) and ten cockerels were allocated to ten housing groups, with each receiving supplementation of either 4.0 (treatment CON) or 2.5 mg (treatment RED) riboflavin per kg feed. After 15 weeks of experimental feeding, 256 eggs were incubated.

RELACS - Improving inputs for organic farming - Data from breeder hens and chicks are particularly critical for the development of vitamin B2 recommendations for organic poultry.

Published in “Sustainability”. Organic monogastric agriculture is challenged because of a limited availability of regional and organic protein-rich ingredients to fulfill the amino acid requirements. The development of novel feed ingredients is therefore essential.

Alternatives to riboflavin (vitamin B2) production by recombinant microorganisms are needed in organic poultry production, but are cost-intensive, so that a demand-oriented riboflavin supply is necessary. Details on the riboflavin requirements of organic poultry are not available. A feed material with high native riboflavin content from fermentation of the filamentous fungus Ashbya gossypii was studied. Two runs with 800 Ranger Gold™ broilers each (40 pens with 20 animals) were conducted.

As a result of public health concerns regarding antimicrobial resistance in animal-based food products, conventional poultry companies have turned to ‘raised without antibiotics’ (ABF) and organic farming systems. In this work, we evaluated the influence of rearing systems on antimicrobial susceptibility in E. coli and extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESLB) E. coli diffusion in conventional (C), organic (O) and antibiotic free (ABF) chicken samples collected from cloacal swabs and skin samples in slaughterhouse. The E.