Spring 2007

General News

This has been an interesting year for our industry thus far.  I would imagine that the most unusual feature of 207 is that it would appear that the demand for animal feed has nearly exceeded our capacity to manufacture and deliver it.  This has meant that it has become a seller's market - the first time that i have experienced this in my 20 odd years in the industry.

The seller’s market applies not only to finished feed.  Many ingredients are also in short supply, and we all have to make conscious changes to our diets to accommodate these shortages (see the article on Riboflavin).  In a seller’s market, client loyalty will be rewarded.  Now is probably not a good time to swop suppliers for 3 cents a tonne!

The Banff Pork Seminar was held in January.  I have included some news releases from this meeting as I felt that they were relevant to all animal producers.

All that remains is to wish you all a blessed Christmas and a prosperous new year.  As in previous years, we will donate to the Avril Elizabeth Home in lieu of sending out Christmas cards.

SPESFEED EXPRESS  

The new SPESFEED EXPRESS Feed formulation program has been 'out there' for 6 or 7 months.  We have had a few wrinkles and ahve discovered some features that we did not know about, but in broad terms, I have been very happy with the way things have gone.  Most of our users have been able to find ways around any problems they have encountered.

Development of the program has continued throughout, with a number of new features being added.  Perhaps most significantly, we incorporated a "Daily Diet" formulation mode.  This allows us to incorporate mathematical models for the various class of animal, and then to formulate diets for them.  To date we have created models for the dairy cattle, beef feedlot and horses.

As Windows Vista becomes the norm on new compuers (try to buy a machine with Windows XP on it and you will see what i mean), peopel will find it more and more difficult to use the old DOS version of the program.  Not only is printing difficult, but the DOS Window on the screen is tiny and i have still not found a way of making it bigger.  From our point of view, we can no longer compile the old program on a Vista machine.  This effectively means we are no longer able to support the old software.

Courses

For the first time in 14 years, we have had to cancel the Poultry Nutrition course due to lace of interest.  We will however run a course on the SPESFEED EXPRESS  program on the 22nd of November at our offices in Rivonia.  If you are interested in attending, please contact Bianca.

Crystalline Amino Acids

We have been using crystalline amino acids in our pig and poultry diets for many decades.  Degussa, who supply these products into the animal feed industry have recently published a review article on their use.  Many of the points made in the article bear repeating here.

Research over the years would suggest thzat cyrstalline amino acids is totally digestible (digestibility coefficients of 100%) in both poultry and pigs.  However, these amino acids may not all be available or utilised by the animal.

Crystalline lysine and threonine (Yen, 2004) are absorbed quicker that the lysine and threonine that is bound to protein in the normal (natural) manner.  In theory, the result of this rapid absorption could be a temporary amino acid imbalance or antagonism resulting in increased oxidation rates of these amino acids, and ultimately decreased efficiency of utilisation.

In practice, this is ot entirely true.  It has been show that when animals are fed more than once a day (or on an ad libitum basis) they overcame the negative effects experienced with free amino acid utilisation.  In addition, when diets are formulated on an Ideal Protein basis (maintaining the correct amino acid balance), there is no reason why the feeding of crystalline amino acids will result in balances or antagonisms.

This means that where feed is being offered to animals on an ad libitum basis there is probably no justification for applying any limits to the use of synthectic amino acids.  Where animals are being fed once a day, it is not recommended that more than 1.5% (1.5kg per ton) of any synthetic amino acid should be included in the diet.

The article goes on to review the Crude Protein (CP) requirements of pig and poultry.  In the case of pigs, it has been clearly demonstrated that there is practically no difference in daily gain or feed conversion when they are fed low protein diets - providing that adequate levels of essential amino acids are supplied in the correct proportion.

In the case of broilers, any attempt to reduce the CP content of the diet has failed.

Enzymes and maize-soya meal diets

I have recently come across and excellent review article on the use on enzymes in maize-soya diets by Prof H Classen of the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.  I have included the "take home" message here for your interest, but have a copy of the paper should you require more information.

The use of exogenous dietary enzymes now has a long history of use with successful application for wheat and barley (coarse grains) and for the hydrolysis of phytate.  The status of enzyme use other than phytase in maize-soya diets remains less well documented.

Both maize and soya are high quality feed ingredients and consequently have less opportunity for improvement with dietary enzymes than some other feed ingredients.  Opportunities do exist however as follows:

Commercially, the enzymes that are the more likely to be successful will target multiple substrates.  The relatively large number of speculated targeted substrates, the complex nature of enzyme sources and the overall lack of a consistent response have slowed commercial application.  It is of interest that improvements in nutrient retention are often not followed by improvements in performance, the bottom line required to adopt this technology.  To be able to make an educated estimate of the economic advantages of using enzymes in maize-soya diets and to increase its credibility, more research (particulary production data) should be published in peer reviewed jounals as it is currently minimal.

Tyson announces AGP-free production

Tyson Foods, Inc., the second largest broiler company in the United States, has annouced that it is producing all of its retail Tyson brand chicken from birds raised without antibiotics.  "While we have great confidence in the quality of our traditional chicken, we're also committed to providing mainstream consumers with the kind of products they want, " said Richard L. Bond, President and CEO of Thyson Foods.

"According to our research, 91 percent of consumers agree it's important to have fresh chicken produced and labelled 'raised without antibiotics'," Bond said.

Tyson uses therapeutic antibiotics in flocks to treat or prevent disease, according to a company statement.  The company said that it will continue to use antibiotics to treat birds for therapeutic reasons.  Products from treated flocks will continue to be produced, but these will not be packed under the "Raised Without Antibiotics" label.  Tyson will promote its antibiotic-free product line with new packaging and a $70 million advertising and promotion plan.

"Raised Without Antibiotics" birds will cost more to produce, but Tyson's market research has shown that consumers are willing to pay a premium in excess of this additional cost, the company said.  Tyson expects its premium for the antibiotic-free products to be less than the premiums charged by most competing niche brands.

Tyson is the second largest processor of chicken in the USA and is the largest poultry company to take the plunge into the production of antibiotic-free chicken and marketing it under its main brand.

InraPorc^®

A new tool for pig nutritionists has been developed in France.  InraPorc was conceived at the INRA-Agrocampus "UMR SENAH" research unit in Saint-Gilles, France (near Rennes).  The program is been based on the significant body of work carried out by INRA under the leadership of Dr Jean Nobilet.  It is intended for use by nutritionists or for teaching nutritional principles. 

The software consists of three modules: a Feed Module, a Sow module and a Growing Pig module.

In the feed module, the composition of a feed is calculated from the composition of the feed ingredients.  The contribution of each feed ingredient to different nutritional characteristics (e.g., to protein or net energy) can be determined.  Qualitative and quantitative aspects of feeding are defined independently and a feed sequence and rationing plan is can be developed.

An animal profile is then created.  This describes the performance potential for growing pigs or sows.  For growing pigs, this potential is described by the farm conditions, ad libitum feed intake and performance.  A sow profile is determined by the characteristics of the sow (and the sow herd), the piglets and feed intake.  Average data from farms can be used to enter this information.  A parametere calibration procedure is used to adjust model parameters so that simulated performance closely matches the observed performance during the productive life of the sows.

Three types of simulations are possible.  A single simulation provides an in-depth analysis of performance, nutrient partitioning and nutrient requirements.  To perform a simulation, a feed sequence plan, a feed rationing plan, housing conditions (for sows), and an animal profile are required.  In addition, the results of different single simulations can be compared.  Simulation results can be shown graphically or as a summary report.  The graphical presentation of simulation results provides information on how nutrient input and nutrient partitioning change during the productive life of the animal.  The model can be found on www.rennes.inra.fr/inraporc.

Broiler Chicks and Colour  

In a recent article in the Journal of Poultry Science (Japan), Khosrania reports on an experiment designed to study the perference of broiler chickens for coloured feed (white, yellow, orange, red and green), under different lighting colours (yellow, orange, red and green) and at different lighting intensities.

Different colour zones were created in each pen in the experiment and the number of active birds (standing and walking), the number of droppings as well as the consumption of the different coloured feed consumed was recorded.

The number of birds that preferred the green coloured zone was 3 times higher than any other colour, with the red zone being the least favoured.  Feed consumption was highest in the green zone (for all colours of feed) and the birds showed a preference for green feed over the other colours.

Rick Kleyn

Riboflavin in Monogastric Diets  

Global supplies of the B vitamins, but especially riboflavin (vitamin B2) have become restricted with a concomitant increase in price.  Riboflavin is possibly the most important of the B vitamins in nutritional terms.  An examination of the literature would indicate that nutritionists might be able to reduce the levels of riboflavin added to diets.  This would have the benefit of saving costs - without running the risk of a drop in performance.  It would also lead to a reduction in the demand for riboflavin and reduce the risk of running out.

Riboflavin is water-soluble vitamin that is essential in monogastric diets.  It does occur in a natural form, but research has shown that the natural riboflavin contained in a typical maize soya diet has an availability of only 59% relative to the crystalline material.  Essential nutrients must be included in the diet because the animal has no mechanism by which to synthesise them.

In broilers, the absence of riboflavin in the diet causes a syndrome known as curled toe paralysis.  This is usually the condition first seen should there have been a mistake in the premix incorporation in the diet.  In some work published by Leeson and his co-workers (see table below) it can be seen just how big an impact the removal of riboflavin has on the fertility of breeding hens when compared to other vitamins.

Hatchability of eggs produced by breeders fed diets devoid of supplemental vitamins (% fertile eggs) - After Leeson

^*   Significantly different from control

^** Vitamins reintroduced

It is interesting how quickly egg fertility dropped in the hens on the removal of riboflavin, but equally how quickly the birds recovered on reintroduced into the diet at week 15.  This is not a surprise, because we all know that if curled toe paralysis presents itself in a broiler flock, simply adding a vitamin supplement to the water results in a rapid return to normal.

In pigs the effects of a riboflavin deficiency are not as dramatic as in poultry.  Pettigrew (1996) has demonstrated though that it has a measurable impact on fertility and weaning weight.  In growing pigs, a deficiency causes a slow growth, cataracts and a stiffness of gait.

As you will now realise riboflavin is not something that you would want to leave out of the diet. In reality, it is probably a far greater risk to poultry producers than the threat of AI is.  However, there is currently a worldwide shortage of the material.  Some plants have closed down, and two of the large Chinese suppliers are under government scrutiny.

As with all things in life, when supplies of a commodity become limited, their prices increase.  Riboflavin is no exception and the world price has increased from € 15-16/kg at the end of last year to € 65/kg by June 2007, with an anticipated increase to € 120/kg by year end.

Against this background, it would be worth examining the levels of riboflavin included in our pig and poultry diets.  In the tables that follow we have put together some of specifications that are to be found in the literature.

Recommended level of riboflavin (in mg/kg of diet of riboflavin for poultry.)

Recommended level of riboflavin (in mg/kg of diet of riboflavin for pigs)

Gregor Botha, DSM

Rick Kleyn

Broiler, Water Consumption and Stress

Measuring and monitoring stress, and its impact on health and welfare, in broiler production systems is important and is likely to become more so.  Ideally, we should be able to make use of "lead" indicators of the general welfare of a broiler flock, as opposed to the use of indicators such as mortality, carcass down grades, contact dermatitis and leg health, which could all be considered to be "lag" indicators.  The amount of water consumed by broilers is correlated to their general health status as well as to stress factors such as the incidence of food pad dermatitis at depopulation.  Work will need to determine threshold level of water consumption, which would provide managers with "trigger-points" at which they would need to take action to alleviate stress.

Two papers (Worlds Poultry Science Journal Vol 63) published by Manning and co-workers fom the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester in the UK, revolved around the measurement of water consumption in broiler chickens as an indicator of the health and stress status of that flock.

The UK's Defra, recognise that "the observance of any particular stocking density is important, but cannot by itself ensure the welfare of the birds".  This means that as poultry producers will need to show that house is largely stress free by some other means.  The measurement of water consumption may well offer producers a "lead" indicator of poultry welfare.

An incease or decrease from expected water consumption levels can indicate health problems.  Inadequate control of moisture in the houe environment can lead poor air and litter quality.  These conditions result in health and welfare issues including dermatitis, Ascites, leg/ambulatory problems and respiratory disease.

One thousand mature birds can excrete half a ton of water per day so management procedures that effectively manage air and litter moisture are crucial to bird welfare.  Any factors that cause an increase in water consumption and/or the level of faecal material produced, will influence air and litter quality.  In the tables that follow, some of the factors that influence litter quality and water consumption are shown.

Factors that affect litter quality

Factors that affect water consumption

In a survey conducted using 12 broiler sites to benchmark (10.6 mil broilers), it was shown that litres of water consumed per m² of house space was a good end of crop indicator of water consumption.  However, more work to determine threshold levels in terms of l/m²/day at which there was an impact on litter quality is required.  (Ed. Perhaps we need to be feeling at this in terms of l/kg of chicken/m²).

L Manning at al.

Cirencester.  

The Banff Pork Seminar

Pork Production – the Big Picture

Optimizing, not maximizing pork production is what puts the most money in the pockets of pork producers, say two poark industry analysts from the University of Minnesota.  The key is a big picture approach that focuses on quality management and recognizes the value of each link in the pork production process.

John Deen and Stephanie Rutten-Ramos outlined the management factors that prevent pork producers from attaining optimum production and things that can be done to overcome those challenges.

Optimization meanse system-wide management and, on a pork operation, that may mean less emphasis on the performance of individual units and more on how the system is performing overall, says Dean.  These are things we are starting to do, but still have a way to go.

Optimization of production also means an investment in records, people and methodical skills.  Because the pork industry has such a broad range of inputs which vary in quality and outcome, it is particularly reluctant to invest in the monitoring and analysis which enhance optimum production, he says.  But when such resources are available, the oppertunities for improvement in swine production rise to a new threshold.

The first question one should ask when considering quality management, says Rutten-Ramos, is what defines quality.  Although quality can mean a number of things, there are eight core principles of quality managment as adopted by the International Organization of Standards.  They include, amonth others, a customer focus, leadership, involvement of people, and a factual approach to decision making and mutually beneficial supplier relationships.

There have been three general assaults on quality management in hog farming over the past few years, says Rutten-Ramos.  One is the expansion of size and localization of responsibility.  This can create situations in which there is little communcation between the different links in the production chain and input suppliers, resulting in a lack of optimization.

Another is the lack of measurement for factual assessment of quality.  We tend to get excited about savings in the sow unit and attribute them to lower weaning ages.  In fact, it has been found that the savings within the sow unit are matched and exceeded by additional costs in the production system.  In other words, the wrong people sometimes get the bonuses.

The third assault is a lack of management accounting.  Improvements in quality should not be assessed through standard financial accouting, says Deen.  Management accounting assesses potential improvements and is done by managers, not accountants.  Those skills need to be developed in swine production.

Decisions based on quality management should be based on the five whys, says Deen.  When there is a problem, we should be looking at not only one why but a set of at least five whys to discover the things that went wrong throughout the system to create the problem.  Again, optimization is a matter of recognizing the links in the system and acting accordingly.  It's something we're starting to do, but the opportunities are endless.

Strategic financial management

Pork producers must be as comfortable in the banker's office as they are in the pig barn to stand the best opportunity for success in today's competitive pork production environment.

Don't allow yourself the luxury of looking only at biological end points, says Dr. Gary Dial of Greenleaf Agribusiness, LLC.  It is easy to be dazed and confused by financial information.  But the understanding you have in terms of production is actually much more sophisticated than financial information generated by your farm.  It's just a matter of expanding your focus.

Learning the fundamentals of strong business plans and financial management approaches for today's pork market can help producers improve their success in re-negotiating debt with banks, says Claude Bilodeau of National Bank of Canada.  It can also strengthen overall experiences working with lenders, partners and investors.  Perhaps most important, it provides a foundation for identifying and attaining goals for long-term success.

A strong business plan and approaches will help your business thrive during good times, prepare for poor times and keeps your banker confident throughout, says Bilodeau.  Even today with all the unfavourable events affecting producer's earnings, we remain confident that our best clients will overcome this situation and come back stronger.

Low periods in price cycles and other challenges underscore the importance of continually re-evaluating and updating plans and approaches to meet evolving needs, says Lori Lane od Farm Credit Canada.

Back in 2004, the focus for producers was "How do I fund the growth?" Today, although the reasons may be varied, expansion in the form of increasing the scale of operations is not in the forefront of producers minds.  Rather, producers are placing more emphasis on how they can hold their own at least through 2007.

Based on cross-country producer feedback gathered by Farm Credit Canada account managers, the general consensus is this core business objective can be achieved if producers can meet several specific goals.  These include withstanding tightening margins, re-tooling or enhancing existing operations to find finishing space, stabilizing herb health and finding and retaining good employees.

Whatever the goals or considerations, it's essential producers communicate those clearly not only in business plans but directly through those plans to all lenders, investors and partners, says Dial.  This will increase confidence in your business plans and make your business more likely to achieve its long-term potential.

In the long run, operating smarter, not necessarily larger or more integrated is what will create the success stories in pork production, says Dial.  More than ever, that means ramping-up sophistication in financial teamwork and strategy to match expertise in raising swine.

If you think large integration automatically makes you a more cost competitive producer you're wrong, Dial told the mainly producer audience at the session.  There are small producers that are competitive on a cost standpoint because they have the right planning, teamwork and systems in place for sound financial management to meet their business goals.

Banff Pork Seminar
Web site: www.banffpork.ca

Feed Intake and Feed efficiency in Dairy Cows

Those of us that are involved in the feed of animals are aware of what an impact feed intake and Feed Efficiency (FE) have on profitability.  Strangely, feed efficiency is not something that is widely reported for dairy cows.  An article by Prof Charles Stalling of Virginia Tech University deals with these two issues very well.

We all know that maximizing the feed intake, especially the farm grown portion, of a lactacting cow leads to increased milk production and improved profits.  Cows dry matter consumption should be 3.5 to 4.0% of body weight or greater at peak production.  For a 650kg cow that is 23 to 26kg of dry matter.  The following are some suggested ways to ensure cows are consuming at the maximum.

In order to compare the efficiency of different production systems, FE can be calculated.  This can be achieved by dividing the fat corrected milk (FCM) by the dry matter intake (DMI).  It is best done on a herd of cows not individual animals.  It gives an idea of how efficient cows are over time.

FCM is calculated as:

3.5% FCM = (.432 * milk, kg) + (16.23 * milk fat, kg)

Example :     22kg milk & 3.9% fat

                   (.432 * 22) + (16.23 * .86) = 23.5kg

Once FCM is calculated and DMI is determined, Feed Efficiency can be calculated.  An example of two herbs producing the same is below:

Typically, herd FE will be 1.5 to 1.6 Remember that when using FE the higher the efficiency figures, the better.  If there are a lot of cows in early lactation this can be higher.  If feed efficiency is low such things as ration balance, forage quality, and healt of the herd may be cause. 

What was not mentioned by Prof Stallings in his article, is that unless costs are considered, calculating Feed Efficiency is of little value.  To illustrate this i have taken the liberty of adding some costs to the data.  I have assumed to milk price of R2.00/kg and that Herd A was using an expensive, high density diet.  Herd B was using a lower density but cheaper diet.  As can be seen, Herd A will have 56% higher margin over feed cost than Herd B.  If fixed costs of R10.00/day were brought into the calculation, Herd B is running at a loss (Ed.)

Prof Charles Stalling

Virginia Tech