PRECISION FEEDING IN POULTRY
Dhanraj Girimal*, Udaykumar, Siddhartha Savale, Gurunath pasare, Vidyasagar
*Veterinary Officer, Srimandal, Bidar, Karnataka
Mobile: 7795642009
Introduction:
Chicken meat is the dominant animal protein which almost covers 50% of total meat production and its production must continue to expand to supply the increasing protein demand. Thus, the feed requirement for the poultry industry also increases. The chicken feed represents 65% of total chicken-meat production cost; improvement in the feed efficiency can help in generating economic gain and reduces the burden on environmental systems. A large amount of focus is placed on improving on utilization of dietary nutrients. In the case of broilers, they grow rapidly and as such, their nutrient requirements change daily throughout their production. Broilers are fed between three to five phase diets in commercial practice, this leads to nutrients being under or over-supplied throughout the production. To minimize the disparity between nutrient supply and nutrient requirements, precision nutrition/feeding is being followed.
Precision nutrition is the practice of adjusting and feeding diets to ensure the dietary nutrient supply equals the nutrient requirement of the animals daily. This essentially removes the under or over-feeding which is apparent in standard phase-feeding systems consisting of three to five diets. Precision feeding is the ability to precisely measure the amount of feed delivered to chickens, and hence accurately calculate feed intake and feed conversion ratio. Many of these technologies are equipped with the capacity to blend multiple feeds, and hence allow the development of precision nutrition regimes for poultry production.Precision Poultry feeding involves three key components they are; 1. Accurate ingredient characterization is key to ensuring the finished feed represents the intended formulated diet in the poultry. 2. The nutrient requirements of broilers must be accurately determined to identify the daily requirement. 3. Precision nutrition requires careful management to ensure the prior two requirements are met. However, the process (pelleting, transporting, and storing) of administering more than 4 diet phases in practice is expensive, logistically challenging, and often impractical, hence diets are limited to 3-4 phases only. New technologies are now available that may facilitate the changing of the diet on daily basis to meet the birds’ requirements and be potentially more cost-effective. Tailoring feed to the daily nutrient requirement of the flock may be done by predicting intake and growth, either via broiler growth models or fitting curves to the current breed nutrient specification. In precision feeding, one can automatically blend a protein-dense concentrate that can be subsequently diluted with a low protein but energy-dense concentrate daily. Delivering precision feeding within the poultry industry involves the expertise of different fields such as technologists, nutritionists, and farm managers. The silos are equipped with weighing scales, feed weighing systems, or similar equipment to measure the amount of feed delivered to poultry and measure the amount of feed remaining within or at the end of a production phase. It helps in more accurately monitoring the performance and improving poultry management and decision making. Previously, this sort of technology was out of the producer’s reach due to high cost; however, with the decreasing cost of technology, precision feeding systems are now becoming more common within poultry production. The continuing growth in the capacity for emerging technology in the precision agriculture field may allow the implementation of precision nutrition, and thus this strategy warrants further consideration for implementation in poultry production. Precision livestock feeding is being used in the piggery sector with promising results.Precision feeding also allows diets to be adjusted in real-time; such fine diet control would be particularly effective in broiler production systems due to their extremely rapid growth. These technologies may also generate additional management benefits including the easy application of treatments to the flock, automating feed supply and records of feed intake, and reducing ammonia emissions .Precision feeding technologies in piggeries have also allowed real-time prediction and forecasting of future requirements of the pigs throughout their growth via the use of modeling software helps in intensive production systems. With the cost of this technology falling, precision feeding systems are now becoming a possibility for mainstream chicken-meat production. Precision feeding increased feed efficiency by 4.6%, and reduced variation in flock uniformity to less than 2% the advantage of this system is complete control of feed delivered and data for the weight of every individual bird within a flock rather than only flock data. However, with this high level of precision comes an expensive initial cost of the equipment. Nevertheless, in a more expensive bird such as the broiler breeder, ensuring reproductive success with consistent flock uniformity may be worth the initial outlay and the return on investment will continue to improve as technology becomes more affordable.Practical considerations in precision poultry feeding:Due to daily blending of feed from two components, the capacity for diets to be progressively adjusted to reflect the performance of the flock over time, or to cope with a sudden change in conditions at the poultry facility, may also bring benefits. For example, if two dietary components are blended to create a balanced diet; a high protein low energy blend and a low energy high protein blend, then during a sudden period of heat stress, dietary interventions can be rapidly intervened to minimize losses. Diets containing high levels of protein are reported to have a higher heat increment than those containing high levels of carbohydrates or fat Thus; diets may be blended to reduce the heat increment by decreasing the high protein component of the diet during the hottest hours of the day. Another example of how precision feeding may be an important management tool for chicken-meat producers is the ability for diets to be managed per farm to match the needs of each particular grower and their farm’s performance. Experienced producers or those situated in more favourable growing conditions may be able to generate good performance with slightly reduced dietary nutrient density and thus reduced diet cost. Diets may be manipulated for certain producers to grow broilers for particular markets; for example, slow vs. fast-growing broilers.
Conclusion: Precision feeding technology will surely replace the way we feed poultry in today’s scenario. In future, phase wise diet feeding may be replaced by precision feeding to meet increasing protein demand, efficient utilization of resources.
