20 April 2022 – A broiler breeder has one job—to produce as many quality chicks as possible. Therefore, they require different nutritional and management strategies to the rest of the industry, where the focus is on issues like daily weight gain or the sensory qualities of the meat.
According to Novus International, those raising broiler, layer, and turkey breeders have increasingly struggled with fertility and hatchability, the two essential qualities on which a breeding animal’s success is based. Today, we hear from Bob Buresh, Executive Technical Services Manager for Poultry at Novus, about the different interventions which are possible to improve on these metrics, and how mineral nutrition in particular can provide a proven return on investment in this context.
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Bob Buresh |
[Feedinfo] Why are fertility and hatchability a growing challenge? Shouldn’t improvement in genetics prioritise these traits? |
[Feedinfo] What kind of nutritional interventions are possible to improve on poor hatchability? How do these strategies help with fertility and progeny mortality?
[Bob Buresh] There are a variety of nutritional interventions being experimented with, including the modification of amino acid, macro and trace mineral levels. Since broiler breeders are fed a restricted amount of feed daily, the nutritional composition of the feed is critical. Deficiencies or imbalances in these nutrients can surely impact performance. Also, broiler breeders have been shown to be very sensitive to changes in feed composition or form. Because of this, the industry nutritionists formulate diets that are both highly digestible and consistent batch-to-batch.
The selection of trace minerals – mainly zinc, copper, and manganese – in the highly bioavailable form of a bis-chelate, has been shown to improve breeder egg production, fertility, and hatchability. These improvements can be attributed to the role of the trace minerals in physiological mechanisms, enzyme pathways, and structural integrity, which can include enhanced bone density, strengthening of the intestinal barrier and/or connective tissues, as well as higher eggshell quality and density.
[Feedinfo] How new is this understanding of a link between mineral nutrition and breeding success in poultry? How has recent research contributed to evolutions in breeders’ nutritional programs?
[Bob Buresh] Successful broiler breeder nutritional programs have been developed and utilized by genetic companies and industry nutritionists for decades. But I feel the production pressures placed on current breeders have resulted in an increased interest in breeder nutrition programs. Broiler breeder research is extremely difficult and costly, especially if the impact of the nutritional changes is evaluated over the entire production cycle of the breeders. There are limited researchers and research facilities qualified to evaluate breeder nutritional programs and this directly limits the volume of breeder research conducted.
Years’ worth of research into MINTREX® bis-chelated trace minerals have supported the belief that MINTREX® provides a uniquely chelated trace mineral to the animal with a very defined structure that protects the mineral from the antagonistic properties of other nutritional components in the gut while delivering the maximum amount of mineral to the site of absorption. The inclusion of highly bioavailable trace minerals, such as MINTREX®, in broiler breeder rations is one key area of broiler breeder nutrition research that has shown promise in both field validations and pen research trials.
In a field validation trial where we collaborated with a U.S. integrator, replacing typical inorganic trace minerals (ITM) in the ration with lower levels of MINTREX® resulted in improvements in breeder egg production, fertility, and hatchability over a 12-month period. A second trial, also in collaboration with a U.S. integrator and the University of Georgia, evaluated the impact of feeding MINTREX® in either a full Reduce & Replace™ program (where ITMs are replaced by MINTREX® minerals) or a blend of ITMs and MINTREX® compared to an ITM control. In this pen trial, breeder performance was evaluated over the entire breeder production period, from 25-65 weeks of age. The study found that including MINTREX® in the ration resulted in enhanced fertility, hatchability, egg production, and the key factor - the number of chicks per hen housed.
With MINTREX® the level of improvement varies depending on the customer’s goals and the nutrition strategy, but we’ve consistently seen MINTREX® foster this enhanced response over programs that exclusively use inorganic trace minerals.
[Feedinfo] What do the data show about the return on investment of such a mineral nutrition program?
[Bob Buresh] A positive and consistent return on investment (ROI) is obviously the primary factor taken into consideration when evaluating new nutritional programs. When fed at the recommended levels, MINTREX® has been shown to improve production parameters and generate a consistently positive ROI of at least 5:1 in broiler breeders. This positive ROI accounts for the performance benefits observed offset by the cost of this solution, which also carries a methionine value because the mineral in MINTREX® is bis-chelated to HMTBa, a methionine source.
[Feedinfo] Beyond improvements to the financial success of a breeding operations, are there other benefits from employing such minerals?
[Bob Buresh] Aside from the nutritional and performance benefits of including MINTREX® bis-chelated trace minerals in the diet, we also see environmental benefits for the producer. The inclusion of these trace minerals is typically at lower levels than traditional inorganic trace minerals. This lower inclusion level coupled with the enhanced absorption of MINTREX® minerals in the bird results in reduced excretion of excess minerals into the environment. While it’s very difficult to quantify the economic value of this reduced environmental excretion, the principle has gained interest in the industry.
The pressure to reduce environmental impact is coming from many places. Regulatory bodies have always created laws to protect the environment and, in recent years, have turned their attention to trace mineral use. The poultry companies themselves are also seeing pressure from their customers and the public to reduce environmental impact in any and every way possible.
[Feedinfo] Mineral nutrition is just one tool for improving the performance of a breeding flock on metrics such as fertility or hatchability. What are some of the other management practices that support this goal?
[Bob Buresh] Just about every facet of broiler breeder management is fair game for making improvements in breeder flock performance.
From the feed standpoint, nutritionists and feed milling specialists are constantly striving to provide feed to the breeders that is nutritionally balanced and consistent. Ensuring the feed is distributed to all birds within the house so that target nutrient intake levels are achieved can certainly help improve breeder performance. A good example is increasing fiber levels in the ration, which results in a reduction in nutrient density therefore allowing for higher daily feed allocation. This practice improves uniformity, and it is also being considered a welfare factor as it provides for a less restrictive quantitative feeding program. We need to keep in mind that with higher fiber levels, trace mineral stability plays an even greater role due to the interactions with different fiber fractions.
Bird weight can also impact fertility, so monitoring and adjusting for growth can make a difference.
In conclusion, it could be said that the feeding and management of broiler breeders for optimal performance is both a science and an art. Both nutritionists and live production personnel rely on past and new scientific research and integrate these ideas into their first-hand experiences to continue to develop programs fostering ideal breeder performance. There is obviously not a single nutritional or management program that would be considered ideal for all broiler breeder operations, but there are recent advances – like including bis-chelated trace minerals in the diet – that should be considered to achieve optimal performance.
Published in association with Novus.
