FDA Cooperative Agreement with North Carolina State University, Prestage Department of Poultry Science (U01)

The North Carolina State University, Prestage Department of Poultry Science utilizes the Piedmont Research Station Poultry Unit (Salisbury, North Carolina) to conduct large scale research projects with commercial broilers, layers, broiler breeders and commercial-style egg incubation. The Piedmont Research Station Poultry Unit is a unique facility that has housing for over 15,000 commercial layers, 8,000 broiler breeders, and incubation capacity to hatch more than 52,000 eggs at one time utilizing both multi-stage and single stage incubation. The Layer Performance Management Test for North America is annually conducted at the Piedmont Research Station, with studies in applied production practices and nutrition management. These facilities are able to evaluate the effects of a research project on a size and scale that mimics commercial poultry operations.

The North Carolina State University, Prestage Department of Poultry Science utilizes their onsite feed mill, which is a research and educational feed mill that is designed and equipped to manufacture a variety of feed mix characteristics, formulations, and feed forms. It is currently used by FDA for training purposes associated with the safe feed-safe food program, and is among the few research feed mills in the country that is associated with animal research facilities. The mill has all of the typical process equipment found in commercial feed mills, including an 8 ton/hr CPM hammer mill, 8 ton/hr RMS roller mill, micro bin-batching system, a 500 lb horizontal ribbon mixer, a 2 ton double-shaft ribbon mixer, a 1 ton/hr CPM pellet mill with counter-flow cooler, a 10 ton/hr Bliss pellet mill with counter-flow cooler, pellet screener, bagger, bulk ingredient bins, finished feed bins, and an automated computer-controlled batch mixing and process operation. This feed mill is able to manufacture feed of various feed ingredient grind size in mash or pellet forms.

While other academic institutions also have outstanding poultry and egg research programs, they do not have commercial style research facilities such as the Piedmont Research Station Poultry Unit, feed mill and resources to conduct large scale commercial size research projects. Moreover, the North Carolina State University, Prestage Department of Poultry Science and Piedmont Research Facility are within close geographic proximity for collaboration with the FDA Department of Immunobiology. This will allow FDA’s investigational scientists to travel by automobile on key experimental dates to initiate research experiments and collect tissue and environmental samples. These samples will be transported within 24 hours back to the FDA Department of Immunobiology for microbiological testing and analysis.

In 2010, approximately 1,939 cases of Salmonellosis were reported in the U.S due to Salmonella Enteritidis contamination in shell eggs. Consequently, the scientific investigation of the vertical and horizontal transmission of Salmonella in shell eggs has become a high research priority designated in the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition’s 2013 strategic science and research plan to address risk management of Salmonella transmission. FDA aims to implement preventative measures to reduce the vertical and horizontal transmission of Salmonella Enteritidis and potentially other Salmonella serovars to table eggs and poultry products. Intensive genetic selection for enhanced egg production has altered the ability to resist microbial contamination within laying hen breeders. Thus, it is imperative that interventional strategies be studied to ensure the safety and microbial integrity of egg and poultry products for consumption.

Therefore, the aim of FDA is to initiate a cooperative agreement with the North Carolina State University, Prestage Department of Poultry Science, in which collaborative research projects can be conducted at the Piedmont Research Station Poultry Unit, to parallel poultry and egg industry practices on a commercial scale to more accurately identify the primary routes of Salmonella transmission within the industry, and identify interventional strategies (dietary, environmental, disinfection) to reduce the risk of Salmonella transmission to table eggs.

The purposes of this partnership are as follows:

1) To utilize a commercial research facility to parallel the transmission (vertical and horizontal) of Salmonella found within the egg production industry.

2) To determine how alterations in physical feed characteristics and housing may influence vertical and horizontal transmission.

3) To examine how commercially utilized disinfection protocols affect horizontal transmission of Salmonella in alternative versus traditionally housed layer hens.

4) To examine the prevalence of differing Salmonella serovars in various environmental layer hen housing systems (conventional cage, enriched cage systems, and free-range).