General News

The past summer season has been somewhat unique.  It has been characterised by higher than average rainfall, but lower than normal maize plantings.  This will result in a smaller than normal crop that has put maize prices under some upwards pressure. 

Although Zimbabwe has had another poor year on the maize production front, both Zambia and Malawi , who have had bumper crops and will be net exporters of white maize this year.  Maize has been imported since February into the coastal regions and this trend is likely to continue. These should add other, interesting dynamics to the maize market in the months ahead.

Thus, the editor becomes a contributor in this edition.

Poultry Nutrition Course

The SPESFEED Poultry Nutrition Course will be held from the 18^th until the 20^th of September at the Country Club, Woodmead.

The course covers the following aspects:

The cost of the course is R 1950.00 per person (excluding VAT).  This fee includes a copy of the SPESFEED book ‘Commercial Poultry Nutrition in Southern Africa ’ and all catering. Please contact Bianca at our offices to ensure your place.

Commercial Poultry Nutrition

We still have a number of copies of the Third Edition of ‘Commercial Poultry Nutrition’ by Leeson and Summers available.  The price is R 550.00 (excluding VAT).  We also have a few copies of ‘Broiler Breeder Production’ by Leeson and Summers, at a cost of R 500.00 (excluding VAT).  Please contact Bianca if you would like to order copies of either book.

SPESFEED Feed Formulation Program

The Windows XP version of the SPESFEED Feed formulation program, known as SPESFEED EXPRESS, has now advanced to the point where it is being tested.  In computer speak, this means that the Beta Version of the program is now under test in the field.  We envisage that SPESFEED EXPRESS will be officially released by October.

I believe that we have managed to retain the logic and functionality (the look and feel) of the DOS version of the software fairly well.  There have been some significant advances in the way in which the data is managed and displayed, much of which has to do with the new operating system.  For example, it is possible to sort and display data in any order.

The aspect of SPESFEED EXPRESS that   pleases me in particular, is the way in which the formulation screen has evolved.  Although it looks a little busy, it is possible to change specifications, ingredient limits and costs, round the solution and examine the sensitivity and ranging data all on a single screen.   This replaces 6 screen’s worth of information in the old DOS version of the program.

New Book

I recently came upon a new book on poultry nutrition on the internet.  It is entitled ‘Poultry Nutrition and Feeding’ and was written by G.M. Pesti, R.I. Bakalli, J.P. Driver, A. Atencio, and E.H. Foster of the University of Georgia .

The book is published by Trafford Publishing (www.trafford.com) and costs US$ 60.00.  The aspect that I found most interesting is that when I ordered myself a copy, I received an e-mail telling me that my book would be ‘printed soon’.  In short, here is a publishing company that only prints the book once they have received an order.

World Broiler Production

The USDA has just published its latest broiler production figures (March 2006) and I have included some of these results.  The two tables below show the situation in South Africa and the rest of the world respectively.  The data for the year 2005 is provisional whilst the data for 2006 is a forecast.

Table 1: Broiler meat production and consumption in South Africa (in 1000 metric tons, ready to cook equivalent)

Table 2: Consumption in the global market (in 1000 metric tons, ready to cook equivalent)

As can be seen consumption in South Africa has risen by 10% in 4 years (in line with the global increase of 11%), while expected production has increased by a much less respectable 4%.  We only make up 1.7% of global production.

Total African production is about 4.1 mil tons, which means that South Africa produces about 20% of the continent’s poultry.  It is of interest to see that the market has essentially stopped growing in Europe .

Ethics in Agriculture

I have written about ethical behaviour and the way in which we conduct ourselves as professional and business people in the past.  A recent publication has revealed that agricultural extension workers believe that ethics do not impact on their daily activities and that the ethics of agricultural practice is not a routine concern.

In the October 2005 edition of the Journal of Extension, Prof Robert Zimdahl of Colorado State University reported on a series of workshops for extension workers, that were held to increase the awareness of the ethical dimensions of agriculture.

It was found that whether ethical implications of actions are considered, is largely related to profitability. If an action has positive economic implications (profit), ethical consideration is appropriate. However, if anticipated economic outcomes will be unsatisfactory, then ethical questions are not considered. For extension workers (and consultants), ethics and economics go together, but economic outcomes tend to be the primary concern.

In broad terms, it was accepted that sustainable agriculture is key.  Sustainability applies to the environment, family farms, animal rights, and food safety.  Sustainable agriculture must be economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially acceptable. It also needs to be politically achievable.  If sustainable agricultural systems are not achieved, the resources available for future generations will not be sufficient to produce enough food. If future generations do not have adequate food, then those involved in agriculture could be held accountable for lack of moral foresight (ethics?). In addition to producing sufficient food, a sustainable system would help preserve local communities and encourage environmental stewardship.

Perhaps it is time to extend ethics to include all aspects of our business.  The recent issue of the water inclusion in broiler products may well be a case in point.

Rick Kleyn

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True Metabolic Availability of Amino Acids

At the 2005 Bannf Pork seminar, a paper dealing with the true metabolic availability of amino acids in pig diets was presented. The rationale behind this technique is that not all of the dietary amino acid as measured by the standardised ileal digestibility method is available for protein synthesis and the ileal digestibility is not always an accurate measure of performance. 

The technique involves using the indicator amino acid oxidation technique. Briefly, if a dietary amino acid (lysine) is limiting protein synthesis, then all other amino acids are in excess and must be oxidized. Phenylalanine was chosen as an indicator of the partitioning of these excess amino acids between oxidation and protein synthesis. Thus, when dietary lysine is deficient, the phenylalanine cannot be incorporated into protein and the excess must be oxidized. As dietary lysine is increased, more phenylalanine is incorporated into protein and less is oxidized. Once lysine is increased above its requirement, then phenylalanine oxidation remains constant because increasing amounts of lysine do not lead to increases in protein synthesis. The dietary lysine level at which phenylalanine oxidation changes from a decreasing pattern to a constant pattern, is called the breakpoint and is equivalent to the lysine requirement.

Phenylalanine oxidation reflects protein synthesis, which in turn is dependent on the lysine metabolically available for incorporation into protein. Thus, phenylalanine oxidation reflects ‘metabolically available’ lysine and does not require any assumptions or require any indirect calculations regarding dietary digestibility’s or endogenous losses specific to feedstuffs. Therefore, metabolically available lysine can be calculated from phenylalanine oxidation, provided the animal is fed lysine at a level that is deficient, or within the decreasing phase of oxidation.

Although the hypothesis has been tested and the technique validated for use with different feedstuffs, several methodological considerations exist that needed to be addressed and validated before the final form of the technique is acceptable. 

Figure 1. Indicator amino acid oxidation response to increasing intake of limiting amino acid.

These would include:

The next step to validate this technique is to directly compare batches of feedstuffs using the ileal digestibility technique and our new metabolic availability approach. One limitation is that batch to batch variability in feedstuffs in amino acid content and availability is significant and prevents an accurate comparison of the methods.

Based on the success of the method in pigs, studies are currently underway to develop this methodology for poultry. The basic methodology has already been validated (Tabiri et al., 2002a, 2002b, Coleman et al., 2003).

Ball, Moehn and Bertolo

University of Alberta

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Evaluating Alternative Feed Ingredients in Broiler Diets

As our broiler production systems become more intensive and more competitive, we continually need to evaluate what we are currently doing and explore new opportunities. Before any decision with regards to any ingredient can be made, it is essential that the nutritionist knows everything there is to know about it.  This means that the nutrient content should be known, that the physical structure or form of the ingredient is correct, that the processing has been such that the nutrient bio-availability has not been negatively impacted and that the biological quality of the ingredient in terms of any possible pathogen or toxin contamination, can be assured.

Once satisfied that you have complete knowledge of an ingredient, the economic value of the ingredient can be determined. Traditionally, there are three aspects that determine the value of an ingredient, these being the price and nutrient content of the ingredient itself, the price and availability of the other ingredients and lastly, the diet in which it is to be used.  By making use of the ranging/sensitivity features of a standard feed formulation program it is easy to determine the value of any ingredient in any specific product.  By extension, Multi-Mix® (Format International) technology gives the nutritionist the ability to determine the value of an ingredient across a whole range of products, bearing the volumes of feed that are to be made and the ingredient availability in mind.

Evaluating ingredients using standard linear programming (LP) does have a major shortcoming.  LP generates a ‘least cost’ diet for a certain pre-determined feed specification.  It does not look at the overall profitability of the broiler production process.  Opportunities may well be lost if the nutritionist ignores bird response to nutrients, in particular nutrient density, and it is this aspect that needs to be added to our methodology of ingredient evaluation.

Figure 1: Response in body weight gain and FCR in male broilers to incremental levels of nutrient density, after Saleh et al. (2004)

By making use of a standard feed formulation program, the ideal amino acid profile as published by Lemme et al., (2004), standard ingredient costs and an estimated value for a live broiler, it is possible to calculate the return at the different energy densities.  This can be seen in the ‘Standard’ line in (figure 2).   

Whilst this data is useful, it was determined using very low bird stocking densities (10 birds/m²).  The work of Berri et al, (2004) demonstrates clearly that at higher stocking densities birds respond to nutrients, total lysine in this case, in a different manner.  The consequences of this are that often experimental data may not apply to commercial conditions. Where stocking densities are higher the expected growth on lower density diets may well be over-estimated.

By making use of the data published by Saleh et al. (2004) and the same iterative methodology as described above, it is possible to illustrate exactly how ingredient availability or price will interact with nutrient density.  To this end, it was assumed that a) relatively cheap Sunflower Meal and b) relatively cheap Full Fat Soya become available.  

Figure 2:  Return per broiler at incremental nutrient densities, for standard diets (- -), diets with sunflower meal, (_ _ _) and diets with FFS (___).

The results of this evaluation (Figure 2) illustrate that should sunflower be available, it may well pay the nutritionist to reduce nutrient densities.  On the other hand, should FFS become freely available, it will pay to use more dense diets.

Rick Kleyn  

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What Type of Mills should we use?

In the last edition of SPESFEED News, we carried a short discussion on what type of mixer we should use.  In this edition, we examine the reduction in particle size (mills).

Hammer Mills: This has been the standard for producing pig feed, both commercially and on farm.  Hammer mills do the best job of reducing barley to a size that limits impact on feed density, flow rate and solids accumulation in pits and lagoons.  Screen opening and the condition of the screens and hammers determines the particle size of the processed feed. As mills become more automated, the option of changing screens for different ages or classes of pigs becomes prohibitive, so a median selection is often used for all rations. Hammer mills have the lowest initial cost.

Roller Mills: Roller mills are widely used for producing cattle rations and more recently roller mills have become increasingly popular for controlled reduction of maize and wheat for pig and poultry rations. Capital cost is higher than for hammer mills, and they are considered more energy efficient.  When one considers rollers are used on feed grains that are more ‘brittle’, this benefit can be discounted. Their main advantage is the controlled reduction of the grain to a desired particle size with greater consistency and equipment durability.

Disc Mills: The disc mill is a recently introduced European option for particle reduction.

The grain is introduced to a chamber between one stationary disc and one revolving disc. The grain is crushed as it moves from the center to the outside of the chamber, through reducing clearance between the discs.  Adjusting the distance between the two discs controls the particle size, and this can be automated to allow different clearances for different feed grains in the ration.

Stirling McLeod

Stirdon Systems, Canada  

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Nutrient Density and Broiler Breeders

The debate over what feed specifications should be used for broiler breeders, continues.  Recently, Enting (2005), has published a paper in which diets of different nutrient densities were used.  It was found that low density diets can affect the development of the reproductive tract, egg production, egg size, composition, embryonic development and the ultimate performance of the broiler – in a positive way.

Six replicates of Cobb 500 breeding hens were used in each of 3 dietary treatment. Diets which included 10.88 MJ/kg of energy during the grower phase and 11.72 MJ/kg during lay, were taken as the standard.  In treatments 2 and 3 the ME content was lowered by 1.26 and 2.51 MJ/kg respectively, by making use of low density feed ingredients.  All other nutrients were reduced to the same extent as the ME content.

During the rearing period, no significant differences in liveweight were observed and the target weight of 2550 g was reached. Although not significant, the lowest energy diet resulted in the lowest ovary and oviduct weights at 24 weeks of age. However, during the period 24 to 26 weeks, there were significant increases in the rate of development of the ovary and oviduct in the birds fed low density diets.

Table: Effect of diet density on egg production parameters and chick weight.

From the next table it can be seen that nutrient density had an impact on the growth and livability of the offspring.

Table: Effect of diet density growth rate and mortality of offspring.

In earlier work conducted by Smulders and Enting, it was found that  reduced nutrient levels in broiler breeder feeds led to a significant reduction in heterophil/lymphocyte ratios at six weeks of age, indicating that the birds were less stressed in physiological terms.

The eminent Dr Colin Fisher has said that ‘any improvements in broiler breeder nutrition in future, are likely to be made through improving feeding programs rather than through changed or improved dietary specifications’.  These data serve to illustrate this point.  Clearly, breeder hens are able to perform adequately over a huge range of nutrient densities, and what happens on the farm is more important that what feed specifications are used.

 H Enting, Schothorst Feed Research

 The Netherlands .

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Effective Communication

While large corporations have specific budgets and departments to address communication issues within their businesses, this is not a privilege accorded to the SME business owner and subsequently  – due to priority constraints – gets overlooked more often than is healthy.

There are two primary areas on which the SME owner should concentrate:

1. Ensuring that communication is regular and meaningful
2. Not confusing ‘communication’ with ‘communications’  i.e. do not assume that because you have distributed pieces of paper with a message on it, that anything has been absorbed or, in effect, communicated.

The global information trend has not left anyone unaffected, much less semi-literate or unskilled workers.  Across all industries we are noting a desire to be better informed, both about the individual’s basic jobs and functions, and about the company for which they work in general.  Employees not only want to know what they must do, but HOW they must do it and how their actions fit into the bigger picture.   Recognising this paradigm shift leads to more effective and better received and interpreted communication.

I call it the TBMB? scenario:  whatever the company does, whatever the individual is asked to do, the subliminal question is ‘this benefits me because??’.  Once this question is addressed, an employee is open to buy -in of required adherences.  An employer can, for example, instruct staff to dry the floor immediately after washing – and leave it at that.  The result at worst will probably be non-compliance:  the instruction makes no sense and may be perceived as unnecessary (Diagram block 1 or 2). At best, there will be some compliance, but a non-committed, conscious form, in other words ‘I am doing this because I am being told to, but it makes no sense to me’.

Imagine, now, the scenario where the same instruction is given but more information is added: ‘if the floor remains wet, it will encourage he growth of bacteria.  This could spread amongst the stock and cause a serious loss.  Loss of stock means loss of income and will lead to loss of jobs.  This could affect you and the people who rely on you for an income.’

At this stage, you are likely to reach a level of conscious compliance, until the employee absorbs and accepts the meaningfulness of the instruction, puts it into practice, and starts performing the task automatically, at which stage we reach level 4: Unconscious Compliance.

Not only does this lead to greater productivity, but establishes a greater sense of security in the employee who understands why he is doing something and through this understanding, becomes voluntarily accepting. This theory can be broadly applied whether one is looking at industrial safety, or issues such as HIV/Aids, contagious disease outbreaks or issues surrounding Bird flu.

After a period of time, this way of thinking becomes inherent in the employee and one invariably finds employees becoming aware of other factors which might influence their effectiveness at work – they start adhering to tea times, picking up papers and attending meetings.

Communications

We are creative beings, no matter how much we try to tell ourselves we aren’t.  Use some of this creativity in your communications to make them more memorable and create a greater impact.  This will make employees more ready, able and willing to understand what you want them to.  Print messages about leave changes  on the feed bucket, let the staff struggle to put on their gumboots because you have put a crunched up message inside saying ‘deadlines are getting tighter’.  A ‘thank you’ on a chocolate medal presented at tea time will go a long way towards understanding of the reward and adherence to operation prerequisites in future.

Karin Petersen specialises in innovative brand building and effective communication for small and medium enterprises.  She can be contact on karpet@iafrica.com or 082 375 4083.