Vancouver-based EnWave Corporation has completed successful poultry feeding trials with Neova Technologies of Abbotsford, British Colombia, a division of Bioseutica.
The study used EnWave's Radiant Energy Vacuum (REV) dehydration technology to dry encapsulated lysozyme, a natural anti-microbial enzyme, to determine whether it can be used as a replacement for antibiotics in chicken feed, EnWave said in a news release.
The trials showed that the dried, encapsulated enzyme permitted the same level of infection resistance as is normally obtained with pharmaceutical antibiotics.
Countries around the world have been looking for ways to eliminate the routine usage of antibiotics in animal feed in order to reduce the perceived risk of anti-microbial resistance in human and animal populations.
Encapsulation is a common technique by which a sensitive material is coated or embedded in a stabilizing material in order to provide protection from harsh processing or storage conditions, as is the case with pelletized chicken feed.
Researchers first encapsulated samples of Bioseutica's Entegard™ by suspending the enzyme formulation in a stabilizing hydrocolloid gel, and then dehydrated the mixture in a modified version of EnWave's nutraREV® food dehydration technology.
The resulting powder was then incorporated into chicken feed and fed to chickens to test their response to clostridial necrotic enteritis, a common poultry disease.
The encapsulated Entegard™ medication gave protection equal to the antibiotic medication that is the common industry solution to this problem in North America.
Bioseutica's proprietary Entegard™ is a purified preparation of lysozyme, a natural anti-microbial enzyme extracted from chicken egg white.
Several mammals, including humans, produce lysozyme in saliva, milk and tears, where it plays an important role in the immune system, protecting against infection.
This makes it a safe and natural antimicrobial for both food and pharmaceutical applications, where it has been successfully used for almost thirty years.
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