Gut health management is one of the main areas of focus in the Asia Pacific region. This segment is a continuous demonstration of its strength, and research will continue to be conducted in this area
Recently EW Nutrition held EW Nutrition’s Poultry Academy in Jakarta, Indonesia (4-5/9). It was recorded that 100 participants came to take part in this activity. EW Nutrition Regional Director Southeast Asia/Pacific, Ramakanta Nayak welcomed participants to EW Nutrition’s Poultry Academy event before poultry nutrition and production expert Steve Leeson kicked off the first day with his presentation on ‘Designing Broiler Feeding Programs – Integration of Formulation, Economics & Predictive Results’ before discusses the topics ‘Layer Feeding for Longer Laying Cycles to Optimize Production & Profitability’, as well as ‘Potential for Controlling Metabolic Disorders and Muscle Defects’.
The EW Nutrition’s Poultry Academy activity was attended by a number of speakers, namely Professor Emeritus, University of Guelph, Canada, Steve Leeson, Technical Services Manager Ross Asia Pacific, Judy Robberts; Hy-Line International’s Global Technical Services Manager and Global Nutritionist, Vitor Arantes; Global manager of technical services Hy-Line International, Daniel Valbuena; Technical Consultant, Feed Technology and Nutrition, Budi Tangendjaja, and Regional Technical Director of EW Nutrition Southeast Asia/Pacific, Sabiha Kadari.
According to Ramakanta, in the question and answer session on the first day, he stated that gut health management is one of the main areas of focus for EW Nutrition in the Asia Pacific region. “This segment is continuous proof of our strength, and we will continue to conduct research in this area,” he said.
According to him, in the Southeast Asia Pacific Region, more and more customers are getting positive results with gut health management solutions from EW Nutrition. EW Nutrition is committed to developing new technologies and bringing these new solutions to market. EW Nutrition will continue to do this through continued investment in research and development, human resources (HR), team and product management.
Maximizing Genetic Potential
At the EW Nutrition Poultry Academy event in Jakarta, as the main speaker, Steve Leeson, emphasized that feed intake is the main factor that drives the growth of broilers (broiler chickens). However, feed efficiency is driven more by muscle deposition than by fat growth. “Selection of strains that grow quickly and indirectly result in appetite is an important criterion in selecting modern broiler strains. This strain is very lean. Encouraging muscle growth rather than fat growth always improves feed efficiency. The reason is very simple, namely 1 kg of fat contains 9,000 kcal, while 1 kg of muscle, which is 80 percent water, only contains 1,000 kcal. As a result, broilers are now very responsive to amino acids. “This means that muscle deposition is almost ten times more efficient than fat deposition,” explained Steve.
He also commented that feeding broilers is now more critical than before. Seven-day weight gain is now the standard metric for measuring productivity. Every 1 gram of body weight at 7 days of age is equivalent to 10 grams at 35 days of age. Feed intake is to maximize genetic potential and utilize the broiler’s appetite. Factors that can reduce feed intake need to be minimized, including the form of feed. The form of feed will affect feed intake: mash < crumbles < pellets. then the feed particle size is maximized by feeding with the largest possible feed particle size.
“Then there is also cage density, ad libitum (continuous) feeding. After the chicken is 28 days old, its density will be more than 35 kg/m2. There is also the environmental temperature factor, namely maximum feed consumption at a temperature of around 15o C after brooding, but optimal feed gain is at a temperature of around 26o C. Then lighting, the longer the lighting time, the greater the feed intake. However, 4 hours of darkness are required so as not to disrupt the bird’s health and immune response. “Furthermore, the feed energy level in broilers still consumes food according to their energy needs,” explained Steve.
Cage Density & Feed Restrictions
Steve also explained that broilers often reach their target body weight at the age of 21 days. However, at 28 days old, it failed to reach its genetic potential. Often, this delay is mistakenly blamed on dietary changes, subclinical disease, or other stresses. However, in many cases, he added, this is only caused by reduced feed intake caused by limited access to feeders. This is due to the higher density of commercial livestock, which maximizes profitability per pen, not per head. “Larger broilers typically compete for access to feed, and may not achieve sufficient feed intake.
“Broilers need to eat about 8 minutes every hour, although this usually does not happen in single feeding,” he said. According to Steve, the genetic potential for feed intake (grams/day) is related to the age of the chicken. For example, for broilers aged 21-42 days, feed consumption is the age of the chicken (days) multiplied by 6, so broilers aged 28 days can consume 168 grams of feed/day.
In terms of temperature, broilers are also increasingly sensitive to heat stress. “We can influence energy needs by reducing maintenance requirements to maintain body temperature. “Maintaining broilers at temperatures less than 15°C will be a challenge with high cage densities, so keeping broilers at a neutral temperature of around 24°C will minimize energy requirements, regardless of cage density,” explains Steve.
Improving pellet quality means chickens need less time to consume feed, thus using less maintenance energy. Improving pellet quality means farmers have the option to reduce apparent metabolizable energy from the food. He
gave an example, for example, if pellet quality is increased from 60% to 80%, this is equivalent to an increase in feed energy of 60 kcal, without any change in food composition. Alternatively, AME can be reduced by 60 kcal, thereby reducing feed costs without reducing performance.
“Meanwhile, the transition from crumble to pellets often occurs too slowly commercially, and this limits growth. The reluctance to feed pellets early is caused by the perception of refusal to eat, so that the change from crumble to pellet feed often occurs at the age of 21-24 days. Broilers will eat large feed particles at a very young age. Refusal to eat during this transition period occurs in minutes or hours, not days. The maximum amount of feed wasted is only 1-2 grams/head.
“Food refusal can be minimized by adding 5% pellets to the last crumble feeding and mixing 50% crumble and 50% pellets,” explained Steve. He said that matching the size of the pellets to the age of the chickens becomes very important as cage density increases. Seteve recommends that from a poultry perspective, the ideal pellet sizes are pre-starter (0-10 days) 2 mm, starter (11- 21 days) short 3.5 mm, grower (22-32 days) 4 mm, and finisher ( 32+ days) 5 mm.
When given a choice of feed in various particle sizes, chickens always show a preference for the largest particles. As the pellet size increases, the chicken consumes fewer pellets and spends less time at the feeder. He concluded that feed intake determines growth rate. “Give pellets to the chickens as soon as possible, and replace the pellets according to the chicken’s needs. “Any management that limits feed intake, such as cage crowding or heat stress, means changes to diet should be postponed,” concluded Steve. TROBOS/Adv
