Our venue at the Country Club has been completely rebuilt so look forward to great new facilities for the courses. Please let Christél know if you are interested in attending any of the courses.

Those of you that are involved in either managing broiler breeders or their nutrition will be pleased to note that the 3rd NuTec Poultry Nutrition conference will focus on Broiler Breeders. Dr Frank Robinson from the University of Alberta, who is an acknowledged authority in this field, will be the keynote speaker. Other local and international speakers will support him. This event will take place during the week beginning June 11.

I have recently come across a number of excellent sources of poultry information from the University of Georgia. The first is "The Poultry Informed Professional " this is a monthly newsletter published by the Department of Avian Medicine of the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine. It can be found at http://www.avian.uga.edu/.

The second newsletter is published by the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering and revolves around poultry housing and tips. It can be found at http://www.engr.uga.edu/service/extension/

A new site has appeared on the Internet called http://www.surcingdrect.com. It is billed as the industries exclusive member-to-member (B2B) communications network for agri-businesses. It will allow members to start trading in over 1000 additives and ingredients in less time and at a reduced cost to current methods. If you are a Format International user it will be possible for you to automatically be linked to this new site.

The Northwest Processor is a newsletter which links farm managers and rural food processors with current research, technology and marketing information from the food industry. The NWP spotlights opportunities for Alberta (Canada) producers and processors and highlights current food industry trends. Feature articles help you take your good ideas from concept to consumer. The editorial team sifts through a variety of resources to bring you the best available for your food business. This informative newsletter can be found at http://www.agric.gov.ab.ca/food/process/nwp/index.html

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Over the past few months we have been involved in a few instances where the wrong premixes have been used in the wrong feed. This is particularly important where macro premixes are being used.

Although we formulate the diets and often the premixes, we are not in the mill and can’t know which formulation is being used. We will always send the formulation to the premix manufacturer if requested to do so but we can not accept responsibility for which premix is to be used in which mix.

We would urge you to put systems in place to prevent the wrong premix from being used in the wrong feed.

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Why statistics are important in nutrition

Many of the articles that appear in SPESFEED NEWS and other publications rely on statistics to make their point. We felt that it would be a good idea to give a little background as to what they do and do not mean.

Variability, both between individual animals in an experiment and the pens or houses in which they are grown, leads to problems in interpreting experimental results. Animals on treatment X may have higher average daily gains than those on treatment Y, but variability within treatments may indicate that the differences in production between X and Y were not the result of the treatment alone. Statistical analysis allows us to calculate the probability that such differences are from treatment rather than from chance.

In some of articles you will see the notation P<.05." That means the probability of the differences resulting from chance is less than 5%. If two averages are said to be "significantly different," the probability is less than 5% that the difference is from chance or the probability exceeds 95% that the difference resulted from the treatments applied. These differences are calculated using a methodology called Analysis of Variance.

A common way of indicating these differences is by using alphabetical superscripts. In data published by Leeson and Summers (1997) this can be clearly seen.

Despite the differences in the protein level of the diet there were no significant differences in body weight or energy intake to 20 weeks of age. However, those birds on the 20% protein diet consumed significantly more protein than those birds on the 19% protein diet (superscripts ^a&b). Although the 18% protein treatment did not differ from the 17% protein treatment (superscript ^c&cd) it was significantly different to the 16% protein diet (superscripts ^c&d ). There were no differences between the 15% and 16% diets (both superscript ^d).

Some papers report correlation or measures of the relationship between traits. The relationship may be positive (both traits tend to get larger or smaller together) or negative (as one trait gets larger, the other gets smaller). A perfect correlation is one (+1 or -1). If there is no relationship, the correlation is zero. This is mostly reported as an R squared value and may sometimes be expressed as a percentage. This form of statistics is most often used to illustrate significant trends in a data set and in my opinion is often not used enough or correctly. This is well illustrated in the article on egg size in this newsletter.

In other papers, you may see an average given as 2.5 ± .1. The 2.5 is the average; .1 is the standard error (SE). The SE is calculated to be 68% certain that the real average (with unlimited number of animals) would fall within one standard error from the average, in this case between 2.4 and 2.6.

As its name would imply, the SE is also used as a measure of variability or uniformity depending on your point of view. By calculating a Coefficient of Variation (CV) it is possible to see how uniform a data set is. CV is calculated thus SE/Average * 100. The CV is a measure that is widely used as a management tool in pullet and broiler breeder rearing and is also a very useful way of analysing laboratory data.

Many animals per treatment, replicating treatments several times, and using uniform animals increase the probability of finding real differences when they exist. Statistical analysis allows more valid interpretation of the results, regardless of the number of animals. Scientific papers demand its use to increase the confidence placed in the results.

You may well ask why I have gone into this detail about something that would appear to be very scientific. The reality is that each one of us has to make decisions, which often have large financial implications, based on data derived from our own farms or by the suppliers of certain products.

We need to be sure that the differences that are claimed are "real" and not simply the result of chance. A simple comparison of two houses or sites tells us little as there is simply no way of knowing if any differences occurred as a result of chance or as a result of the treatment applied.

A comparison of averages of large numbers of birds or animals under commercial conditions may or may not be meaningful. If this comparison is between birds kept in different geographic regions it is probably not valid. It is also questionable to compare results between two different time periods (cycles) because apart from the weather there may also have been a number of management changes.

We are very wary, possibly even cynical, about trial results that have not been submitted to proper statistical analysis. You should be too!

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Relationship Selling

As we begin examining the methods involved in relationship selling, we must start with the most crucial step, and unfortunately the one most under-performed... planning.

Planning your selling is the foundation of all selling techniques, and yet we either spend too little time on this step, or we don't implement it well.  In general planning consists of:

1. organising your ideas
2. market research
3. client research
4. preparations to meet an individual client
5. estimating the amount of time to spend on different clients

In traditional selling, planning takes a "back seat" to the other portions of the sales cycle and is usually a low priority. In relationship selling planning is a high priority task.

Knowing your customers/prospects, knowing the market, and knowing the products and services you offer make up the bulk of the effort involved in planning. But a key element to making the planning "pay off" is to plan the amount of effort/time you will spend with any one customer or client.... In other words prioritising is a catalyst to this process. To put prioritising in perspective, let me relay to you a little story I heard in a management seminar, and which I have used myself when training salespeople:

An expert in time management was speaking to a group of salespeople, and to drive home the point of prioritising he used the following illustration. As he stood in front of the group, he pulled a one-gallon (ok... it was a four litre) wide mouth jar and set it on the table in front of him. He then produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, is the jar full?

Everyone in the seminar said YES. Then he said, "Really?"

He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of pea sized gravel. Then he dumped some of the gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the space between the big rocks. Then he asked the group once again, "is the jar full?"

By this time, the seminar attendees were a little bit wiser..."probably not" one of them answered. "Good," he replied. He then pulled out a bucket of sand and repeated the process of dumping the sand into the spaces between the rocks and gravel. Now he asked the group once again, "is the jar full?"

"No", the seminar attendees answered. Once again he said "good", then grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour water into the jar until it was full.

After filling the jar up with water, he asked. "What is the point of this illustration?". One eager beaver answered, "no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard you can always fit more things into it."

"NO", the management speaker replied "that’s" not the point! If you don't put the big rocks in first, then you will never get them in at all.

Now the point of this story (and the management experts illustration) is that you must first place into your jar (or bucket, or work schedule) the big rocks or better yet biggest pay-back clients and prospects... then add to your workload the less viable customers and prospects. If the management expert had first filled the jar with sand, he never would have gotten even one fist-sized rock into the jar.!!!!

In closing this note, I would add that you should not only plan who your first call or sale is going to be within a company, but where the next sale is most likely to occur based on the first sale... kind of a "domino effect". Remember that planning is not just a task, its part of a strategy to convert prospects to becoming customers, then keeping them as customers for life.

As always if you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact me as needed.

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GM is the best option we have

There are some people in this country (UK) that stereotype scientists without ever knowing any of them; that ascribe ulterior motives to scientific endeavour and surround themselves with acolytes of similar limited experience. These people commonly rate the wisdom of nature as superior to human ingenuity and survival.

When problems develop we must continue to rise to the challenge to tackle them as we have done in the past with nobility and intellect. Do not listen to the siren voices that say, "stop the world I want to get off". There are many such voices in the UK at present. A decade ago, as a university plant biologist, I thought that genetic manipulation (GM) would be publicly funded and used for the benefit of mankind.

Indeed I share in the general distrust of GM commercialisation and I know this is a major complication in the UK. But this is the world we live in; if you don't like it change the economics, don't demean the knowledge. We can't eliminate knowledge simply because someone makes a profit out of it.

Two recent reports of publicly funded, university GM research now indicate its true potential. US scientists in collaboration with Japanese workers have genetically improved rice to increase seed yield of each plant by 35%. Why is this important? One of the most certain facts about the human population is that it is increasing. Our current numbers of some six billion have already placed dangerous burdens on the ecosystems of spaceship earth and threaten our bio-diversity on which we are all interdependent. Ploughing up wilderness to feed these extra people is no option. We can also eliminate organic farming as a meaningful solution. Organic farmers rely ultimately and only on soil nitrogen fixation to provide the essential nitrate and ammonia for crop growth and yield. Rainwater provides the other minerals. Since the maximum yields of fixed nitrogen have been measured numerous times we can estimate that by taking another 750 million ha of wilderness under the plough we could feed just three billion.

Critics say to me there is enough food to feed the world and they may well be right; at present. But the excess will not last long; our population increases by 1.3% per year; current annual cereal increases are only 1.1%. We live on the residual excess produced by the green revolution. At some point catastrophe beckons.

Our second report deals with a problem that kills one million young children in the third world every year and leaves many millions permanently blind. Rice contains no vitamin A and weaned babies rapidly become deficient. Either eye development is permanently damaged, (we all need vitamin A for sight), or they succumb to childhood diseases that any western baby shrugs off in a week. Scientists in a Swiss university in a 'tour de force' have genetically improved rice to make vitamin A. This golden rice has been given to the International Rice Institute in the Philippines for distribution to help ameliorate this serious problem and ensure a better life for parents and children.

Global warming is the problem that requires the UK to develop GM technology. Agriculture would be seriously damaged and necessitate the rapid development of new crop varieties to secure our food supply. We would not have much warning. Recent detailed analyses of arctic ice cores have shown that the climate can switch between stable states in fractions of a decade. Even if the climate is only wetter and warmer new crop pests and rampant disease will be the consequence. GM technology can enable new crops to be constructed in months and to be in the fields within a few years. This is the unique benefit GM offers. The UK populace needs to be much more positive about GM or we may pay a very heavy price.

The testing of GM food is exemplary in its detail and takes at least four years. Sir John Krebs, Head of our new Food Standards Agency concluded that GM food is as safe as its non-GM counterpart. If eating foreign DNA and protein is dangerous we have been doing so for all of our lives with no apparent effects. Each GM food will be considered by regulatory authorities on its own merit.

As for GM environmental effects, many countries provide us with details of reduced use of herbicides and pesticides of 15-100%, of increased crop yields, less insect damage, a return of non-target insects to fields and reductions in fungal toxins in food. Even the flurry over the Monarch butterfly has been capped by record numbers on migration last year. Over 20 laboratories have now shown the original Monarch fears were groundless. Within five years, vaccines against the killer E.coli, hepatitis B, cholera and other diseases will all come in GM food. Even now they are in human trials. These vaccines will be very stable, be easily distributed world-wide, need no refrigeration or injection; merely consumption.

Superweeds are merely herbicide resistant weeds. There are over 100 weeds world-wide with resistance to some 15 different herbicides. There are even four crops with natural herbicide resistance from conventional breeding. These include oil seed rape and are used by farmers.  If you sow a rape crop with natural herbicide resistance, only marginal regulations apply and the crop could be grown alongside an organic farm without objection. Common sense is called for here and there is certainly a lack of common sense in current attitudes with supposed contamination by GM.

If rape is removed from the field, the herbicide resistance gene in feral weedy relatives would disappear within a few years. If the cultivated field is left fallow, both GM and non-GM rapes would disappear within a few years. Like any other crop plant, domesticated rape cannot compete with weeds. The genes we put into crops are for our benefit and not for survival in the wild.

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Controlling egg size

For various commercial reasons our clients often require more large eggs or more commonly fewer large eggs. I often feel that I am a failure as a nutritionist because I do not possess the necessary skills to manipulate egg size in laying hens.

The literature shows that increasing the levels of linoleic acid in the diet will impact on egg size. Two things confound this. Firstly, maize contains high levels of linoleic acid and adding to this level often has little effect. Secondly, the genetic composition of the laying birds used in South Africa may well preclude a response to increased levels of linoleic acid. Removing linoleic acid is seldom an option on a maize-based diet.

Many people believe that they can reduce or increase egg size by manipulating the level of the first limiting amino acid in the diet. Methionine is the most often quoted amino acid in this regard. However, in a classic piece of work, Morris and Gous have been able to show that egg size and egg number are both impacted upon by changing the amino acid level of a diet. This is significant because egg number is more susceptible to a reduction than is egg size when the amino acid levels of the diet are reduced. Trying to reduce egg size by reducing the protein or amino acid content may well lead to a reduction in egg number.

In truth the effect that nutritionists can have on egg size is limited. This was brought home to me on my last trip to the UK, where it was noticeable to the naked eye just how much bigger the eggs in the houses were when compared to South African eggs. To a large extent the breeding companies are responsible for this difference and quite rightly so. They are able to select lines that give an average egg size that meets their target market’s requirement.

The second major influence on egg size has to do with the size of the point of lay pullet. This was brought home to me very forcibly by some work recently published by Harms and his co-workers in the Journal of Applied Poultry Research. These workers split a flock of hens into Light, Medium and Heavy groups at 27 weeks of age. The effect that this had on egg size is clearly illustrated below.

Table: Egg weight of hens grouped according to body weight

In truth the effect that nutritionists can have on egg size is limited. This was brought home to me on my last trip to the UK, where it was noticeable to the naked eye just how much bigger the eggs in the houses were when compared to South African eggs. To a large extent the breeding companies are responsible for this difference and quite rightly so. They are able to select lines that give an average egg size that meets their target market’s requirement.

The second major influence on egg size has to do with the size of the point of lay pullet. This was brought home to me very forcibly by some work recently published by Harms and his co-workers in the Journal of Applied Poultry Research. These workers split a flock of hens into Light, Medium and Heavy groups at 27 weeks of age. The effect that this had on egg size is clearly illustrated below.

From these data it is clear that the weight of the hens at 27 weeks were significantly different from each other. Whilst the egg weight of the Light birds was significantly lower than the remainder at 37 weeks of age, there was no significant difference between the Medium and Heavy groups egg weights.

As mentioned earlier in this newsletter, this is a classic case of an incomplete statistical analysis having being carried out on a data set. When I carried out a regression analysis between hen weight and egg size I was able to determine that there was a highly significant trend between hen weight at 27 weeks of age and egg size at 37 weeks of age and that the correlation coefficient was .933. Remember that a perfect correlation is 1.

Clearly then, the most effective way to manage or manipulate egg size would be through managing either the genotype being used or to select point of lay pullets on a weight basis.

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The uptake phosphorus system (oP System)

In 1997 the Centraal Veevoederbureau (CVB) adopted a new P system that is based on the uptake of phosphorus (Opneembare Fosfor Systeem or oP system). The oP system accounts for the following: 

	The uptake of phosphorus is calculated to be the difference between the total P taken in, minus the portion of P that could not be absorbed and is therefore voided in the faeces.
	Between 70 and 90% of the phosphorus in commonly used ingredients of plant origin is present as inositol phosphate. Recent investigations have revealed that older animals are able to digest more of the P in inositol phosphate. This means that animals digest less inositol phosphate during the starter phase then they do during the grower and finisher phases.
	For most plant feedstuffs less inositol phosphate is digested as the amount of Ca and P in the feed increases from marginal to commercial levels. Comparing faecal and ileal P digestibility’s at marginal and commercial dietary levels of Ca and P quantify this relationship.
	The uptake coefficient the non-inositol bound phosphorus in feedstuffs of plant origin is based on the P uptake of feed phosphates and taken as 80%.
	The uptake of P differs between pigs and poultry. This is due to differences in gut length, transit time and gut pH. If the available P values of typical pig and poultry diets are compared the percentage P available for uptake is 0.25g/kg lower for pigs. This difference is accommodated by an equivalent increase in the P requirement for pigs.

Broiler diets: Since the breakdown of inositol phosphate in broiler chickens increases from 14 to 35 days of age (Van der Klis and Versteegh, 1997) the oP system assumes that broilers do not digest any inositol phosphate during the first 2 weeks of age. For this reason there is no scope for reducing phosphorus levels in broiler starter diets while around 3kg per ton may be replaced in grower and finisher diets.

Layer diets: An extra P requirement for maintenance is added due to calcium (and P) mobilisation during shell formation. This extra P amounts to around 170 mg P/day and prevents a reduction in the addition of feed phosphates.

 

Ingredient	Weaner	Grower	Finisher	Lactation	Sow & Boar
Maize 8.0%	755	744	755	664	655
Oilcakes	142	221	165	248	87
Fish/Carcass	75				33
Bran 15%			47	50	200
Monocalcium Phos	10	13	10	16	7
Salt	4	5	5	5	5
Lys/Meth/Thr	2.2	3.4	2.7	1.9
Feed lime 36 %	8	11	12	13	11
Premix	3	3	3	3	3
Total batch	1000	1000	1000	1001	1001
Current oP level in feed (g/kg)	3.8	3.3	2.8	3.9	3.3
Dietary oP Requirement (g/kg)	3.4	2.6	2.1	4.1	3.8
Difference in specification (g/kg)	0.46	0.78	0.72	-0.14	-0.43
Replacement of MCP (kg/t)	2.6	4.4	4.1	-0.8	-2.5

Pig diets: For growing pigs between 2 and 4kg monocalcium phosphate may be saved while, because of commonly lower intakes than shown in the requirement table, there is no phosphorus saving in the case of breeding sows.

 

Microbial phytase:

Microbial phytase enhances the digestibility of phytate P in feedstuffs of plant origin. It is suggested that 500 IU Aspergillus Niger FTU/kg is equivalent to 1g P from MCP in the case of broilers and pigs and 300 IU FTU/kg in the case of layers. At a concentration of 5000 FTU/kg the assigned oP value is 8520 g/kg for broilers and pigs and 14200 g/kg for layers. The equivalent oP value for 2500 FTU from Peniophora lycii phytase is 2840 g/kg in the case of broilers and pigs and 4733 g/kg for layers.

 

Conclusion:

The implementation of the oP system increases the accuracy of P feeding and improves the utilisation of phosphorous. Ultimately it aids producers in reducing the production cost of animal products.

 

Walter Scharlach

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The Farm Feeds Act and Registrations

 

All those of us involved in the animal feed and pet food industries will know that both the products that we manufacture as well as many of the ingredients that we use need to be registered in terms of the Fertilisers, Farm Feeds, Agricultural Remedies and Stock Remedies Act, 1947. There are a number of definitions of what a farm feed is, as defined by the Act. In essence they would include any product which has been manufactured or processed in some way.

Registration of products in terms of the Act requires information to meet the legal implications of the Act in practice. These implications are encompassed within the administrative procedures applied in the office of the Registrar. To avoid administrative problems that can delay the registration process unnecessarily, attention should be given to the following aspects.

 

Application for registration:

The application for registration in terms of the act consists of a number of components.

	A covering letter from registration holder or appointed representative is required, together with an application form.
	Application forms must be submitted for new applications and amendments to an existing registration. They must be submitted in duplicate, completed in full, without reference to previous applications, page numbers or other products.
	English and Afrikaans draft labels must be supplied (in duplicate), and all particulars on the label must correspond exactly with those on the application form.

	The name in which the product will be registered must be identical in all documentation. Any change in the name, however slight, will be regarded as an amendment.
	The prescribed application fee for a new application and for an amendment to the registration is currently R700,00 per product

All advertising or promotional material must be submitted to the office of the registrar for approval before publication.

	The average time for the whole procedure is about 3 months, but this may vary depending on how busy the office of the registrar is.
	Registration holders must note any conditions of registration. If these are not adhered to, the registration will be withdrawn.

 

Renewal of registrations:

Renewal of the registration of products is done on an annual basis. The deadline for renewals is 30 September of each year. The renewal fee is currently R350.00 per product. A Form A is to be completed for application of renewal of registered products. It must be completed in triplicate and a sworn declaration under oath must be made on the reverse side of all three copies.

SPESFEED now offers a registration administration service. This service entails the following for pet food registrations:

	Application form completed in duplicate.
	An example of the draft label/printing details in duplicate.
	Data to substantiate nutritional adequacy.
	A short description or flow diagram of the establishment and quality control measures.
	Data to substantiate label claims if applicable.
	A signed affidavit.
	Details of registration holder

In case of a farm feed, SPESFEED will supply the Registrar with:

	Application form filled out in duplicate.
	An example of the draft label/printing details in duplicate
	Details of registration holder

All the above mentioned items are required by the Registrar to ensure approval of both the pet food and farm feed registrations.

The cost:

R1500.00 for a pet food registration

R 500.00 for a farm feed registration

These prices exclude the registration fee and VAT.

A 50% reduction on the above prices is available to SPESFEED retainer clients.

 

Christél Coetzee

SPESFEED cc

Animal Nutrition Consultants SPESFEED NEWS is published by the consultants at SPESFEED cc. The purpose of the newsletter is two fold. It serves both as a source of information for those involved in animal agriculture as well as a means for us to maintain contact with out clients. SPESFEED provides a professional technical service to the livestock and animal feed industries. Our aim is to ensure that our clients use optimal production and feeding systems in order to maximise the return on investment. The company has no affiliation to any particular product or supplier.