The UK poultry sector has in recent years successfully cut the incidence of nicarbazin in chicken livers, but routine surveillance by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate continues to find a small number of samples with detectable levels of nicarbazin.

While it is not a food safety issue with no risk to human health, both the Food Standards Agency and poultry sector are keen to eliminate it totally.

Peter Bradnock of the British Poultry Council explains that while feed bin management is key "we didn't really know if that is the only cause. Is it also some other cross-contamination of feed, or the result of feed withdrawal prior to catching encouraging birds to pick at litter which could contain treated feed from an earlier spillage?"

However, the fear is that failure to act could eventually lead to the withdrawal of nicarbazin (Maxiban), which is a very important coccidiostat for the UK where, it is used extensively in starter and grower diets. Maxiban is the only UK licensed product containing nicarbazin.

So what is the industry doing?

The FSA is working with the British Poultry Council, NFU, Veterinary Medicines Directive and Elanco Animal Health in a project, aimed at finding the cause and ultimately, drawing up a series of practical recommendations for producers.

The group appointed an independent project co-ordinator who collated information from 275 farms producing the tested birds. Data included feed management as well as other factors when the birds sampled were being reared.

The full results can be found on the FSA website, and the FSA Chief Scientist has commented on the findings in his blog.

Recommendations from the nicarbazin reduction project:

• Follow current best practice, as it has successfully cut nicarbazin residues.
• Ensure all levels of farm staff are trained.
• Managers should remove any existing blame culture to encourage mistakes to be identified and rectified quickly.
• Farm managers are aware of the precise amount of nicarbazin feed needed for the birds on the farm and which feeds contain it.
• Producers devise a system for both double and single bins, to make sure that any bin containing nicarbazin feed is completely emptied prior to the five day withdrawal period before slaughter.
• Feed being fed is tested regularly using the Elanco on-farm feed test (soon to be available). This will confirm the robustness of the systems used and protect against residues in poultry.

The project report was launched at the Pig & Poultry Fair 2008, and the presentation given can be found here.

- ENDS -

BPC 14 May 2008