Holistic view of intestinal health in poultry

The intestinal health of poultry has broad implications for the systemic health of birds, animal welfare, the production efficiency of flocks, food safety, and environmental impact. The importance of this topic has grown over the past two decades and this was the focus of this workshop arranged to provide a forum for discussion and mutual learning by sharing experiences, scientific information and demonstrations of comparative effects of multiple factors that affect intestinal health under controlled conditions. This special issue is the product of that workshop. This first paper reviews the multiple aspects that can affect the intestinal health of poultry, and individual factors are then addressed in more detail in subsequent papers. However, some factors, like breeder intestinal health, incubation conditions, early feeding, water quality, housing conditions, feedstuff quality, mycotoxin and rancidity, and grain drying will be discussed herein since will not be covered in detail elsewhere in the issue. The objective of this paper is to offer a great overview of intestinal health in poultry production and emphasize that a holistic approach is necessary when trying to minimize these dysbiosis and enteric diseases.