Page 8 - National Poultry Newspaper

The precision feeding robot donated by Feedworks.
Figure 1: The over and under-supply of dietary nutrient between predicted nutrient requirement (thin black line) and supplied nutrient (thick blue line) as demonstrated for digestible lysine level (%) over a four-phase production cycle.
Figure 2: The over and under-supply of dietary nutrient between predicted nutrient requirement (thin black line) and supplied nutrient (thick blue line) as demonstrated for apparent metabolisable energy (MJ/kg) over a four-phase production cycle.
Figure 3: Feed conversion ratio (FCR; g/g) from 14-21 days, where; T1 is the con- trol four-phase feeding program, T2 is the precision nutrition program, T3 is the precision nutrition program adjusted by weekly weights and T4 blends the control diets to as closely meet the daily nutrient requirements as possible.
Figure 4: Body weight (g/bird) at 42 days, where; T1 is the control four-phase feeding program, T2 is the precision nutrition program, T3 is the precision nutrition program adjusted by weekly weights and T4 blends the control diets to as closely meet the daily nutrient requirements as possible.
Page 8 – National Poultry Newspaper, December 2021
The Feedlogic equipment helped to blend energy and protein concentrates and record intake on a daily basis.
Evaluation of precision nutrition to enhance broiler growth efficiency
CHICKEN meat con- sumption is increasing on a global scale and our population is also exploding.
er, grower, finisher and withdrawal diets). Treatment 2
grower diets at 14 days. This change between starter and grower diets represents the largest jump in nutrient levels between dietary phases and was happening at a crucial time when the gut was young and still
chicks – possibly due to minimising the shock of diet change on the gut.
How do we meet this demand with less re- sources than ever before and ensure it is environ- mentally and economi- cally sustainable?
A precision nutrition program that meets the daily nutrient require- ment by blending en- ergy and protein dense concentrates on a daily basis.
Additionally, pen CV was improved and the birds had larger final weights.
Precision nutrition is the concept of ensuring nutrient supply equals nutrient demand for an animal on a daily basis.
Treatment 3
developing.
Whereas birds offered
Analysis is ongoing and we hope to have further digestibility re- sults soon.
Meeting the daily nu- trient requirement re- moves the under and overfeeding of nutri- ents, which occurs in standard feeding re- gimes of three to five diets.
A precision nutrition program as above, ex- cept the blends were adjusted based on the bird’s actual rather than predicted weights. Treatment 4
the precision nutrition diets were having grad- ual changes daily and therefore were not ex- periencing the sudden change.
We will also be further exploring the concept of precision nutrition in another Poultry Hub tri- al in 2022, looking into the effect of ‘AM/PM diets’ or ‘phase feeding’ to improve FCR, skel- etal health and welfare parameters of laying hens.
As an example, the predicted and supplied nutrient requirement are demonstrated for digestible lysine and en- ergy over a four-phase production cycle in Fig- ures 1 and 2.
A program where starter, grower, finisher and withdrawal diets were blended together on a daily basis to as closely as possible meet the daily nutrient re- quirement.
There was no signifi- cant difference in fat pad weights, but the ad- justed precision feeding program of Treatment 4 tended to reduce the fat pad.
Finally, we would like to thank Feedworks for donating the Feedlogic equipment to this pro- ject and to the Univer- sity of New England’s Precision Poultry Facil- ity.
The over and under- supply of digestible lysine and energy is greatest within the first half of the production cycle, which is particu- larly important as it is a critical time for gut de- velopment and growth of the chick.
Birds were weighed in- dividually on a weekly basis to measure the variation in weights within each pen.
Precision nutrition programs also gener- ated a significantly greater body weight at 42 days, with the ad- justed precision feeding program of Treatment 4 having the greatest live weights – see Figure 4.
Furthermore, excess energy may be stored as fat and excess amino acids may be deami- nated – an inefficient process – or may be used in the hindgut to synthesise microbial proteins.
Over 11-42 days there was no significant dif- ference in FCR, but there was a significant difference at 14-21 days where the precision nu- trition program gener- ated the best FCR – see Figure 3.
Finally, precision feeding significantly reduced CV to fairly large extents at almost all time points over the study – CV at 42 days given in Figure 5.
Click on the QR Code to watch the video on UNE’s Precision Poul- try Facility.
Therefore, the aim of this project was to de- termine if precision nu- trition – that is feeding a new diet every day to match the daily nutrient requirement – improves the efficiency of pro- duction.
This was likely be- cause of the sudden diet change in the control treatment from starter to
In conclusion, preci- sion nutrition improved feed efficiency of young
For more information, contact Dr Moss on amoss22@une.edu.au Dr Amy Moss
The study ran from 11- 42 days post-hatch with 10 replicate pens – 12 birds per pen.
This was likely be- cause this treatment’s diet was adjusted based on the birds’ actual weekly weights, so when they grew ahead of schedule they were moved forward on the feeding schedule.
This equipment helped us to blend energy and protein concentrates and record intake on a daily basis to achieve the precision nutrition diets.
There were no sig- nificant differences in weight gain or feed in- take.
We would also like to acknowledge Poul- try Hub Australia for funding this project and thank them for their on- going encouragement and support.
Aside from produc- tion efficiency (FCR) we also looked at fat pads, variation of bird weights in the pen (co- efficient of variation CV) and digestibility.
The treatments con- sisted of the following. Treatment 1
Figure 5: CV at 42 days, where; T1 is the control four-phase feeding program, T2 is the precision nutrition program, T3 is the precision nutrition program adjusted by weekly weights and T4 blends the control diets to as closely meet the daily nutrient requirements as possible.
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A control four-phase feeding program (start-