Feather pecking and cannibalism are multifactorial problems that affect most laying hens in modern husbandry. As to which hens are predisposed to being pecked and suffer from feather and skin damage is still under investigation. In this retrospective study, hens’ live weight and plumage condition were each recorded and investigated for a potential relationship. Data were collected from 5,764 laying hens (various genetics) from 17 flocks (alternative housing systems) during several visits over their entire laying period. At each visit, a sample of hens was weighed and scored for plumage und skin damage. Afterwards, depending on each hen’s weight deviation from the target weights provided by the breeders (WTW), they were grouped as too light with < -10
Food safety continues to be an important issue for consumer protection and public health globally. Chicken meat is considered a primary source of Salmonella and E. coli infections in humans. In recent years, phage-based biocontrol has attracted attention as a promising approach to combat these foodborne pathogens due to its advantages over traditional methods and its biological properties as a natural bactericide. Using phage-based control as a decontamination method to ensure microbial safety of food aligns with the One Health strategy for sustainable pathogen control and prevention of foodborne infections. This study aimed to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a three-phage cocktail with optimized efficacy for simultaneously controlling Salmonella and E. coli on raw chicken filets during cold storage. To optimize the efficacy of the final phage cocktail, three phages were selected according to their host ranges and the efficiency of plating (EOP) values. They were combined in a cocktail, and the host range was expanded using the Appelmans protocol for 30 training cycles. The antibacterial efficacy of the trained three-phage cocktail was evaluated in liquid culture using a planktonic killing assay (PKA) and on raw chicken filets stored at 4 ± 0.5 °C for 72 h, employing multiplicities of infection (MOI) of 1, 10, and 100 for targeting filets contaminated with single Salmonella and E. coli strains and a mixture of both. After training according to the Appelmans protocol, the cocktail showed an expanded host range, covering 62.5% (5/8 after 30 training cycles) instead of 37.5% (3/8 before training) of the tested bacteria. The planktonic killing assay demonstrated that the trained three-phage cocktail had a significant inhibitory effect on bacterial growth of the Salmonella strains (4/4, 100%) from 3 to 6 h, while the non-trained initial three-phage cocktail’s effect was less pronounced (1/4, 25%) and lasted only 3 h. However, three of four E. coli strains (75%) were not sensitive to the three-phage cocktail after 30 cycles of the Appelmans protocol compared to two out of four strains (50%) with the non-trained initial three-phage cocktail. On raw chicken filets, significant bacterial reduction was observed when using MOI 10 and 100 of the trained three-phage cocktail. A maximum reduction of 1.56 log10 CFU/mL of Salmonella BfR 20-SA00418 and 1.48 log10 CFU/mL of E. coli 19/302/1/A after 72 h compared to placebo-treated controls were achieved using an MOI of 100. We observed a synergistic effect of the three-phage cocktail compared to single treatment, with a stronger effect on Salmonella than on E. coli strains. Using the Appelmans protocol improved the effects of the developed three-phage cocktail, leading to broader pathogen coverage. The efficacy of the developed three-phage cocktail under cold storage conditions and its ability to reduce the bacterial load in raw chicken filets highlighted its potential for extending shelf life and reducing risks for the consumer. The findings of this study demonstrate that the developed and optimized three-phage cocktail is a promising biocontrol agent for enhancing safety in raw chicken meat production.
Global warming remains a neglected environmental challenge for the sustainability of primary production, particularly aquaculture, which is highly susceptible to the spread of established pathogens and the induction of emerging infectious diseases under warming conditions. Over the past decade, Europe has experienced dramatically high temperatures that may impact both farmed fish and their pathogens in a largely unpredictable manner. While, in general, warming may boost the rate of disease transmission and its virulence by increasing pathogens' fitness in weakened hosts, some diseases characteristic of cooler environments may become rare. Field data is still largely fragmented, but in vitro experiments reveal that almost 28 microbial diseases in European finfish farming could be facilitated by climate warming. Innovative mitigation tools, such as fish selective breeding, epigenetic programming, the development of new vaccines, and alternative treatments, may prove essential in coping with the effects of rising water temperatures on fish diseases in Europe.
Group-living primates experience the benefits and costs associated with sociality, including an elevated risk of parasite transmission. However, the relative influence of group type (i.e., social structure), group size, and habitat disturbance on parasitic infection remains unclear, particularly in Southeast Asian primates. In this study, the abundance of intestinal parasites in proboscis monkeys (Nasalis larvatus) inhabiting a riverine forest along the Menanggul River, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, was investigated. Fecal samples (n = 160) were collected from one-male-multifemale and all-male groups in areas with varying levels of anthropogenic disturbance, with efforts made to ensure that each sample originated from a different individual. In addition, the effects of group type, group size, and sampling location on parasite abundance were evaluated using fecal egg counts and Bayesian models. Three dominant parasite species groups (Trichuris sp., Strongyloides fuelleborni, and Oesophagostomum aculeatum) with an overall infection prevalence of 81.25% were identified. Results showed that group type did not significantly affect parasite abundance. However, group size showed a positive correlation with the abundance of Trichuris sp. and a negative correlation with S. fuelleborni and O. aculeatum. In addition, our models revealed that the infection load of Trichuris sp. decreased with increasing distance from the river mouth, which was used as a proxy for a disturbance gradient, whereas O. aculeatum exhibited higher infection load at greater distances, indicating lower prevalence in more disturbed downstream areas. Thus, parasite abundance in proboscis monkeys may be shaped by social and environmental factors, with taxa-specific responses likely reflecting differences in environmental persistence and transmission ecology.
Until December 2025, 18 African swine fever outbreaks have occurred in domestic pig holdings in Germany. However, nine of them emerged in western Germany in 2024, representing a separate spatial and temporal cluster. Thus, the current study is limited to the remaining nine outbreaks. We aimed to illustrate the epidemiological background of each of the nine outbreaks. The assessments included the results of the outbreak investigations and of the genome sequencing. This is the first study to provide a detailed overview of these outbreaks and, in particular, to publish the genome sequences involved. In several outbreaks, a connection to the neighboring affected wild boar population was considered likely. The hypotheses were supported by genome sequencing; thus, the study has underscored the benefit of including results of genome sequencing in the evaluation of disease epidemiology. However, outbreaks also occurred on farms without reported cases in wild boar in the vicinity. Similarly, outbreaks were observed in farms with low biosecurity standards but also in farms with very high biosecurity, emphasizing the difficulty to identify a pattern in the outbreaks. Still, it has to be acknowledged that a consistent and sustained compliance with biosecurity measures represents the most important factor in preventing virus introduction.
