39 Evolutionary Optimization of an Antibiotic Feed Regimen Applied to Multiple Bacteria

Antibiotics have been given to production animals for several decades as a performance enhancer. For nearly as long there has been a concern that using these antimicrobials in production animals could lead to bacteria developing resistance to antibiotics and eventually be exposed to. While this risk is still undefined, it would be of benefit to minimize the ratio of resistant bacteria to susceptible bacteria while still maintaining the benefits of administering performance enhancers to livestock. In this research we use a graph based evolutionary algorithm to find an antibiotic treatment regimen that maintains the weight gain and health benefits of antibiotic use while minimizing any risk from the presence of resistant bacteria. Previous work investigated the effect on campylobacter.spp only. This study examines different regimens of Tylosin Phosphate use on all bacteria populations, divided into Gram positive and Gram negative types, with a focus on campylobacter.spp.