The use of bacterial spores as a feed additive for poultry offers the potential for a more integrated approach to farming, according to Luca Ruiu and colleagues in Sassari.

A recent study, published in Poultry Science, examined the administration of Brevibacillus laterosporus spores as a poultry feed additive to inhibit house fly development in manure as a new eco-sustainable concept.

The success of a microbial pesticide application against house flies developing in manure should accomplish the uniform mixing of active ingredients with this breeding medium, thus enhancing residual effects, they reported.

The oral administration of the entomopathogenic bacterium, B. laterosporus, to caged poultry species allows the homogeneous incorporation of its active ingredients with fly breeding media.

Faeces from treated broilers or hens show toxicity against exposed fly adults and larvae.

Insecticidal effects are concentration-dependent with a lethal median concentration (LC₅₀) value of 1.34 × 10⁸ and 0.61 × 10⁸ spores per gramme of faeces for adults and larvae, respectively.

Manure toxicity against flies was maintained as long as chickens were fed a diet containing adequate concentrations of B. laterosporus spores. Toxicity significantly decreased after spore administration to birds was interrupted.

When poultry diet contained 1,010 spores per gramme, mortality of flies reared on faeces exceeded 80 per cent, the Sassari-based researchers concluded.

Reference

Ruiu L., A. Satta and I. Floris. 2014. Administration of Brevibacillus laterosporus spores as a poultry feed additive to inhibit house fly development in feces: A new eco-sustainable concept. Poultry Science. 93(3):519-526. doi: 10.3382/ps.2013-03418