PHEASANT rearing without Emtryl, the recently-withdrawn medicinal feed additive widely used to control the commonest diseases, may be easier than many UK gamekeepers fear, according to one renowned US-based gamebird consultant.

Speaking at a series of seminars organised by Alltech UK last month, Rade Spasojevic used common US rearing methods to illustrate the type of system he believes would reduce disease challenge significantly and leave rearing farms less reliant on preventative medicines.

Mr Spasojevic, a specialist poultry and gamebird veterinary consultant operating with some of the United States' biggest pheasant rearing farms, pointed out that most US game units had successfully adopted the management, feeding and hygiene regimes common in the poultry sector.

The same structured approach, with greater emphasis on reducing stress and on cleaning and disinfection to avoid horizontal disease transmission, offered a way forward for UK gamekeepers, he said.

"In the US, the main disease threat for reared pheasants is a highly infectious condition called mycoplasma, which is specific to gamebirds and can be devastating," he said. "Systems that mirror the standards of the best poultry farms are now commonly used to combat this threat, and the approach is cost-effective and successful."

In the UK, pheasant rearers have to deal with an equally devastating condition, hexamitiasis, as well as diseases such as trichomoniasis and coccidiosis.

According to Mr Spasojevic, there is evidence to suggest hexamitiasis is less infectious than mycoplasma - with no vertical infection from bird to progeny, for example - and therefore should be more easily controlled through good management practices.

"The protozoan organism responsible for hexamitiasis cannot survive off the bird for any significant time, so newly-hatched chicks are clean and, with good biosecurity, units should be free from this disease at the start of the season," he said.

"Batch rearing procedures, with good cleaning and disinfection carried out, have a good chance of creating effective control. Nevertheless, disease-free new-season birds will still face a potential infection threat from wild animals or older pheasants.

"Preventing contact with birds released the previous year may well be difficult, if not impossible, so it is important that new-season birds are fed and watered as well as possible to minimise their susceptibility to infection.

"In this context, feed ingredients proven to stimulate gut health do have a role, even in the best managed units. Products which have been adopted for this purpose in the poultry sector should be given serious consideration."

Alltech's Nick Adams recommended Bio-Mos as an ideal product for inclusion in pheasant chick diets. It is already fed to an estimated 1bn birds annually in the UK poultry sector.

It is a totally natural feed additive, which works by binding the disease-causing bacteria in the young bird's gut, preventing infection and damage to the minute structures on the gut lining.

"Feeding Bio-Mos to the young bird prevents damage that would normally occur, so that it matures with a far healthier system," said Mr Adams.