Evaluation of the impact of formaldehyde fumigation during the hatching phase on contamination in the hatch cabinet and early performance in broiler chickens

Commercial hatch cabinet environments promote replication of microorganisms. These pathogenic or apathogenic microorganisms may serve as pioneer colonizers of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) of poultry. Some of these pioneer colonizers, such as Escherichia coli and Enterococcus spp., are opportunistic pathogens that lead to reduced performance in commercial poultry. Effective hatchery sanitation is imperative to limit contamination of naïve neonatal chicks and poults. Formaldehyde fumigation has been traditionally used to reduce the pathogen load in commercial hatch cabinets. To investigate potential alternatives to formaldehyde fumigation, models to mimic the microbial bloom in a laboratory setting must be utilized. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the impact of a multispecies environmental challenge model (PM challenge) with and without formaldehyde fumigation during the hatching phase on early performance in broiler chicks. Three experiments were conducted to evaluate microbial contamination in the hatch cabinet environment (air samples, fluff samples), enteric colonization at day-of-hatch (DOH), and 7-day performance. In all experiments, significantly (P < 0.05) more gram-negative bacteria were recovered from the GIT at DOH in the PM challenge control group as compared to the nonchallenged control (NC) group and the formaldehyde-treated group (PM + F). There were no statistical differences in 7-day body weight gain or feed conversion ratio between the PM challenge control group, the NC group or the PM + F group. These data suggest this model could be utilized to evaluate alternatives to formaldehyde fumigation for controlling the microbial load during the hatching phase in a laboratory setting.