Better lighting, nutrition and air quality can greatly contribute to alleviating many of the health issues we commonly witness in poultry production. How can we implement these modern poultry housing system enhancements across the industry to improve the quality of the birds in a sustainable way that also conserves energy? Dr. Brian Fairchild, poultry scientist at the University of Georgia, discusses housing designs and current marketing trends in broiler house management.

The following is an edited transcript of Kara Keeton’s interview with Dr. Brian Fairchild. Click below to hear the full audio.

Kara:              I'm here today with Dr. Brian Fairchild, a professor and extension poultry scientist with the University of Georgia. Thank you for joining me today, Dr. Fairchild.

Brian:             Thank you.

Kara:              I'd love to know what inspired you to pursue a research career in poultry management and science.

Brian:             Well, that's kind of a long story, but I grew up on a poultry farm. We only had one two-story house in North Carolina. My dad was working for Holly Farms at the time in the processing plant as an assistant plant manager. My grandmother worked there on the debone line, and so when I went to school, I had the intentions of being a veterinarian, but along the way, I started working in a turkey physiology lab and discovered the world of research and education and working with students and growers and just changed my career path down that avenue.

Kara:              So, you really enjoy that interaction with the farmer and with your students and sharing with them about the poultry industry.

Brian:             I do. As a matter of fact, a good week is if I'm on farms two or three days a week.

Kara:              That's wonderful. That really ties into your interest in broiler management. Explain how your research has led to looking at the operations of housing impacts on the success of a poultry farm.

Brian:             The goal of our research at UGA — there's a team; it's myself, Michael Czarick, who is an ag engineer, and we’ve got our students that work in our lab, a series of grad students. Our goal is to improve poultry house environments and conserve energy. All of the techniques that we've been trying to do, over the last 20 years that I've been involved with (it), have been to try to come up with techniques that are relatively low-cost to implement and give a quick return on investment while making that house energy-efficient. So, what we're trying to do is improve the environment for the bird but, at the same time, conserving as much energy as we can, since the growers, in most cases, are paying for those utilities.

Kara:              Bottom-line is always a big issue for the farmer, as we all know. When you're looking at operations of a poultry house, one of the things that I've always read about and actually experienced is, of course, we all need healthy fresh air, but there are other components that are critical in the operations of a poultry house: fresh air, heat, air movement. Why are these so important, and how can farmers take existing housing and maybe make improvements and incorporate these in to make a house more efficient and conserve energy and make a better environment for the birds as well?

Brian:             Well, those are correct. The temperature is obviously — I think people have really focused on that, and we do a very good job of meeting very specific temperature profiles during the life of that flock, but we do not do a very good job of controlling the relative humidity. We need to really have specific goals for relative humidity and try to hit those just as accurately as we do with our temperatures to improve that environment for the flock, because the relative humidity and the litter quality or the bedding material quality is going to be directly related; the higher the relative humidity, the more damp your floor conditions will tend to be. That can lead to footpad lesions. It can lead to higher microbial activity, more challenges, higher ammonia output — again, a challenge to the birds.

                        What we're trying to do is just minimize those challenges that that bird has to face so that it doesn't have to use its resources to alleviate the environment or alleviate a stress. What we're trying to do is to have all those resources, the energy it's taking in from feed, (go) to growth and development, whether it's broilers for meat production, breeders for hatching egg production or layers for table egg production.

Kara:              Well, of course, weather and different seasons can impact that. I know that there are amazing apps out there now for farmers so that you don't have to be in the house every moment to read the changes. Can you tell me a little bit about your research and, possibly, research that you've done and others have done there at the University of Georgia to address these concerns and develop technological approaches to helping farmers?

Brian:             What we do is we scan the different technology areas to identify tools that can be implemented at the farm level, economically and efficiently, and provide a payback for that return on investment for that grower.

                        We're just out constantly looking for new ways to implement this. Now, what's happening right now is we're seeing technology prices come down to a level now that agriculture is really starting to use it. We're getting into precision farming and other types of agriculture when it comes to road crops, so now, we're starting to see more opportunities for implementation of these technologies there. The environmental controller companies have got a whole host of environmental monitoring opportunities there for people to use, whether it's putting (in) a laptop or a PC and connecting that wirelessly to the houses so that they can look at that when they're in their office or sitting at home. Most of them now have got some kind of a phone app that will communicate wirelessly as well, and they can see temperatures. They can even make changes to their house settings based on what they're seeing on their phone.

                        What we've done along those lines — back to our whole ventilation, relative humidity and ventilation rates to control moisture — is we developed our app called the Chkminvent. Unfortunately, it's only available on iPhone, but basically, it's a moisture-balance calculator where you can plug in the amount of water that that bird is consuming that day, and it will calculate, based on the inside temperature and relative humidity targets, the outside temperature and relative humidity, and the amount of fan power that you're using to ventilate that day on how much you need to run that fan, so they can get a better hone-in on a more precise and accurate way of controlling that moisture.

                        I use that a lot of times. I keep it on my phone. I've got it on my iPad. When I'm doing farm visits and I see that somebody is not ventilating enough, I use it a lot of times to plug in those current conditions that we're standing in right then and there to show them that maybe we need to increase those ventilation rates 10%, 15% or whatever it needs that day.

Kara:              How have farmers been responsive to this new technology? I know (that), sometimes, farmers have a tendency to not adapt as quickly. Some jump on the bandwagon right away. Where are the challenges you see facing the adaption of this technology in the poultry industry?

Brian:             Actually, it's amazing how quickly they'll adapt. If it's something that will make their lives a little easier and give them more feedback — because, ideally, they would be visiting those houses every hour throughout the day, but we all know that's physically and logistically not possible for many people, so having that phone there and having those apps and those ways of looking to see what's going on inside of those houses on a more consistent basis throughout the day, throughout the week, is really going to give them the incentive to implement this. A lot of them surprise me when I go out and visit, how many people pull out their phone, or we go sit down in their office, which is very close to the houses, and they'll bring up a PC and we'll just start looking at data.

Kara:              So, this not only helps them save time; it also is an energy-conservation approach to handling your poultry house operations, correct?

Brian:             Yes. It could help with that, because if they're seeing something going on, they can fix it much quicker than waiting several hours to find out that an inlet got stuck opening and you have a heater that's running constantly, so you could see these little blips pop up on your phone — and they're going to get more sophisticated in the future. As these companies develop algorithms and they collect more data, they're going to be able to do better predictions of when there's something going on and be able to notify that grower of an alarm that something's not right and you need to go down there and figure out what's going on.

Kara:              And this all comes back to the bottom line because, when you can address issues quickly, you save money in the long run, and it also impacts the health of the bird.

Brian:             Which means a better, bigger return —

Kara:              — for the farmer, and that is always a positive. With your work in extension and getting out on the farm, how do you see ways that we can implement these poultry housing improvements and operational improvements across the industry to better improve the quality of the birds and the success of our farmers?

Brian:             That's a tough question because there are a lot of factors that are involved, from economics. All of these things are going to have a different investment, and people are going to be looking to see, "Okay, if I invest this much, how long is it going to take me to see a return or recoup that investment?" That's one factor that's going to be going into this. Others (are) going to be education, in a way — being able to demonstrate and help those people understand how this can help them improve their operation, improve their bird performance and, ultimately, their bottom line.

I know we've been saying how much it's going to help the grower. It will help the grower, but it's also going to help the companies as well, because the more efficient those birds are, the more efficient they are at converting feed into muscle, into bird. So, with that being our most expensive input into the live production side nowadays, companies are going to be just as interested in this. The integrators are going to be just as interested in this as those farmers are.

Kara:              Well, we are lucky to have research specialists and extension specialists like yourself that are willing to work with our farmers and work with our companies to address these issues. Where do you see your research going a few more years down the road?

Brian:             We are moving into trying to tie what the bird — that effective temperature. The effective temperature is what that bird actually is feeling. It's a combination of all the environmental factors that include air temperature, relative humidity, air movement, bird density. All of these things come together and affect that bird body temperature and what the bird is actually feeling.

                        So, what we've been doing and will continue to do over the next couple of years is trying to measure the actual bird body temperature in relation to those different environmental things — controlling the humidity better, doing a better job at keeping the birds evenly distributed, just do those types of management things. The other thing that we're working at is we're still looking at new technologies. We're going to start our third test farm with variable-speed fans to look and see how those can be implemented into broiler production or poultry production in general to conserve energy.

Kara:              Well, that is wonderful, and best of luck to your future research. Thank you so much for joining me today. This was Dr. Brian Fairchild, professor and extension poultry scientist from the University of Georgia. Thank you.

Brian: All right.

Want to learn how you can improve your poultry housing?

En la mayoría de fincas de ganado, uno no espera ver a animales jugando a las escondidas entre árboles altos y tener que estirar el cuello para entrever el panorama. Este es un sorprendente sistema de agricultura regenerativa que Daniel Wolf y su familia han estado implementando en sus fincas en Brasil desde hace 10 años. Conocida como silvopastura, la producción de ganado y árboles –juntos– tiene para ambos un papel importante por igual, pero invisible: el secuestro de carbono.

“Todos dicen que el mejor día para plantar un árbol fue ayer”, señala Daniel. “Y con este tipo de sistema, tan pronto como se aplica esta nueva tecnología, se aprende mucho y se puede aumentar la productividad y sostenibilidad. Y eso es lo que queremos”.

Cuando el padre de Daniel, Mario, llegó al estado brasileño de Mato Grosso en 1975 con amigos y familiares, no existían carreteras ni infraestructura de comunicación. Sin embargo, había dos ríos importantes próximos y el Bioma Amazónico, que incluye el bosque tropical amazónico, la selva tropical y otras ecorregiones. Actualmente, la familia Wolf posee tres fincas que juntas cubren 12,000 hectáreas, la mitad de las cuales ellos preservan como bosque regional.

La vida silvestre local –desde loros hasta monos– es parte de la vida diaria de su familia. Y ellos son testigos de cómo las plantas, los animales y las personas pueden vivir en armonía. Entonces, ¿por qué no en una finca también?

¿Cuáles son los beneficios de la silvopastura?

La silvopastura es una forma de agroforestería que integra la gestión del pastoreo del ganado con la producción de cultivos y árboles. En las fincas de Daniel, la producción simultánea de ganado, árboles y soja –en un sistema simbiótico– ha permitido que cada elemento prospere, con beneficios adicionales para el suelo y las fincas.

1. El ganado y los árboles trabajan juntos para secuestrar el carbono en los troncos, ramas y raíces de los árboles, así como en el suelo.
2. Los árboles pueden aumentar el bienestar de los animales al proteger al ganado de climas extremos, como el viento y el calor.
3. Los árboles proporcionan también forraje al ganado para alimentarse.
4. La protección y la mejor nutrición de estos árboles benefician la salud animal, así como la producción de carne, leche y crías. De hecho, algunas investigaciones han demostrado que las vacas lecheras pueden mejorar su producción de leche simplemente estando a la sombra.
5. El ganado vacuno proporciona un control natural de malezas y fertilizantes.
6. Los productores obtienen compensaciones económicas por esta disminución de los insumos.
7. Los árboles también proporcionan un ingreso más diversificado, protegiendo a los productores del riesgo económico.

Daniel ha descubierto que este sistema le ha permitido producir más en la misma extensión de tierra.

“Incrementamos la productividad, produciendo cultivos y ganado. Porque cuando integras los sistemas, aumentas la fertilidad del suelo”, explica. “Cuando haces eso, puedes poner más vacas en la misma proporción de tierra. Por lo que aumentamos la productividad del ganado y también el cultivo. Entonces, duplicas tu producción”.

Ciniro Costa Junior es analista de clima y agricultura en IMAFLORA, una organización no gubernamental brasileña que trabaja con gestión y certificación forestal y agrícola. A través de su trabajo como investigador, que se enfoca en cómo satisfacer las futuras demandas de alimentos con un menor impacto ambiental, ha visto que los sistemas silvopastoriles pueden ser “carbono neutral” o incluso generar créditos de carbono; lo que significa que pueden secuestrar más carbono del que se emite.

Al crecer, Ciniro recuerda haber visto solo pastos desiertos –sin árboles–, utilizados solo para la cría de ganado. Descubrir la silvopastura le abrió un nuevo mundo de posibilidades.

“Es un verdadero cambio”, dice. “Ya que pasas toda tu vida en una sola realidad y piensas que esa es la única manera de hacer las cosas. Y cuando ves que los sistemas silvopastoriles ofrecen los mismos productos, piensas: “¡Guau! Tenemos aquí una innovación”.

También es optimista sobre las posibilidades de la silvopastura y la agricultura regenerativa para crear un futuro más brillante, incluso donde la tierra se ha degradado previamente para la agricultura y otros fines.

“Cuando hablo de la tierra degradada y demás, veo una oportunidad: la oportunidad de restaurar, la oportunidad de tener un menor impacto en el mundo como seres humanos”, señala.

Transmitiendo una pasión para una agricultura sostenible

Para Daniel, la producción es un legado familiar que espera transmitir a sus futuras generaciones. Todo comenzó para él cuando su padre lo invitó a ordeñar vacas cuando era niño y, luego, usaban esa leche para preparar chocolate caliente. Desarrolló en él una pasión por el trabajo y ahora está enseñando a sus hijos la misma valiosa lección. Durante las vacaciones, la nueva generación de la familia visita las fincas y va a pescar, camina por el bosque y aprende sobre la naturaleza por sus padres y abuelos.

“Mi papá es un héroe para mí y para mi familia”, dice Daniel, “y yo quiero ser un héroe para mi hijo y para mis siguientes generaciones”.

También cree que es igual de importante mirar más allá de sus fincas familiares, para ver cómo están impactando a la industria en general y al mundo.

“No es seguro que mi hijo o mi sobrino dirija este negocio”, señala. “Pero tenemos que construir un negocio que sea sostenible para todos. Y quizás mis nietos pueden seguir los pasos de mi abuelo, de mi padre y los míos”.

Arrojando luz sobre la silvopastura y compartiendo el éxito

Daniel se siente profundamente unido a la tierra de su familia, en gran parte porque sabe el impacto positivo que puede tener en los demás.

“Creo que es hermoso, muy hermoso”, dice sobre la tierra. “Pero es más que eso, porque aquí está nuestra vida. Todo lo que tenemos proviene de aquí. Los alimentos que producimos pueden alimentar a mucha gente, y ellos pueden disfrutar buenos momentos con la comida que nosotros producimos”.

Es por ello que está convencido que –a pesar de la desinformación que se crea sobre la agricultura y los reproches que a menudo recibe– los productores no solo deben desempeñar un papel central en la protección de la tierra, sino también alimentar a una creciente población mundial de manera sostenible.

“La agricultura tiene que ser parte de ello, porque la carne que comes, el alimento que consumes o la ropa que usas provienen de la agricultura”, comenta. “Entonces da la solución para alimentar al planeta”.

La silvopastura, con su producción ganadera sostenible y su capacidad de captura y almacenamiento de carbono, es solo un ejemplo de la agricultura regenerativa que puede marcar una diferencia monumental para la salud de nuestro planeta. Ciniro cree que lo más importante, hoy, es crear tales sistemas a mayor escala.

“La agroforestería no es algo nuevo. La gente la ha estado desarrollando desde siempre”, comenta. “El punto es cómo podemos trasladar los sistemas agroforestales a escala y cómo escalar y continuar ofreciendo productos y desarrollar cadenas de valor basadas en sistemas agroforestales”.

En Mato Grosso, el ganado supera en número a las personas y la industria ofrece una cadena de valor rica e importante. Ciniro estima que alrededor de 10 millones de personas en Brasil están directa o indirectamente relacionadas con el sector del ganado de carne a lo largo de esa cadena de valor.

Tales números impresionantes remarcan la creencia de Daniel de que todos estamos juntos en esta travesía. Así como el ganado y los árboles trabajan juntos en su finca, también pueden hacerlo personas de cualquier procedencia y condición social.

“Una nueva tecnología que se concibe en la ciudad llega a una finca para aumentar su productividad con una cosa en mente: que estamos todos juntos. Y necesitamos proteger y mejorar el planeta para todos”, remarca, señalando el sistema de energía solar que sus fincas utilizan para bombear agua del suelo para su ganado, como ejemplo.

En última instancia, todo se reduce a la tierra: cómo es cultivada, preservada y compartida por todas las criaturas en armonía.

“Mi madre y mi padre siempre decían que ‘el mejor lugar para estar es el lugar donde estás’”, recuerda Daniel. “Queremos aprovechar lo mejor de este terreno para poder ayudar a nuestra familia, a las personas que trabajan con nosotros, a la comunidad, al país y al mundo”.

A mastite é a enfermidade mais comum em vacas leiteiras. Anualmente, três em cada dez vacas leiteiras apresentam inflamação clinicamente aparente da glândula mamária. Dos bovinos acometidos, 7% são descartáveis e 1% morre em decorrência da doença. Além disso, mais de 25% das perdas econômicas totais na produção de bovinos de leite, associadas às doenças, podem ser diretamente atribuídas à mastite¹. A prevalência dessa doença está atrelada principalmente ao manejo pré e pós ordenha. Isso explica a importância da capacitação de ordenhadores, incluindo formas corretas de higienização e desinfecção do ambiente.

Além disso, o manejo nutricional correto com adequado balanceamento da dieta também exerce importante papel no aumento da resistência imunológica das vacas contra infecções. Pesquisas apontam que alguns nutrientes, tais como vitaminas A e E, selênio, cobre e zinco, podem interferir positivamente na resposta da glândula mamária no controle da mastite. Um exemplo claro disso é a ocorrência de baixo teor de selênio na dieta, resultando em deficiências nos mecanismos de defesa e redução no número de células secretoras de leite.

Esses nutrientes agem reduzindo o impacto dos radicais livres sobre o organismo animal. Esses radicais são moléculas instáveis com alta capacidade de reação, que podem interferir no metabolismo oxidativo do animal, sendo esse um complexo sistema necessário para auxiliar células do sistema imune no combate de patógenos. No entanto, quando ocorre um desequilíbrio neste sistema, danos celulares podem ocorrer, como no caso da mastite aguda. O processo inflamatório causado pela enfermidade leva a grandes danos à glândula mamária, tais como perdas na produção de leite e, em casos mais graves, perda permanente dos quartos mamários. Caso o animal esteja em condições fisiológicas ideais, a produção de radicais livres pode ser neutralizada pela capacidade do próprio organismo. Contudo, se essa produção for exacerbada, danos em moléculas importantes como lipídios, DNA, carboidratos e proteínas podem ser causados, o que impacta na queda na qualidade do leite. Nesse contexto, o selênio pode auxiliar na neutralização dos radicais livres, uma vez que ele exerce atividade sobre algumas enzimas, tais como a glutationa peroxidase (GPX). Para que essa ação ocorra, é necessário que o selênio esteja em quantidade adequada no organismo do animal evitando o comprometimento do sistema imunológico, reprodutivo, a saúde do animal, e é claro, a qualidade do leite.

Os outros microminerais, como cobre, manganês e zinco também possuem uma função importante como cofatores enzimáticos que diminuem o processo de oxidação. O resultado disso também é a melhora do sistema imune e, consequentemente, a preservação de importantes células de defesa, reduzindo a probabilidade de infecção nas glândulas mamárias dos animais.

Gestão de Minerais Orgânicos da Alltech

A Alltech, mais uma vez, sai na frente e inova quanto ao conceito de suplementação mineral na forma orgânica com sua linha Bioplex e a solução Sel-Plex. Fontes de microminerais quelatados de alta biodisponibilidade produzidos seguindo normas rígidas de qualidade, com respaldo de centros de pesquisa conceituados a nível local e global. 

Como podemos verificar nos gráficos abaixo, a suplementação de Bioplex em rebanhos leiteiros reduziu a quantidade de células somáticas (CCS) e aumentou a produção de leite².

Há muito mais a ser dito a respeito do uso e benefício dos minerais orgânicos na dieta de bovinos de leite. Para saber mais sobre este tema e sobre a linha de minerais orgânicos da Alltech, acesse: alltech.com/br/gestao-minerais

Referências:

¹ (Thimothy et al., 2000).

² (Kina et al., 2007)

Dúvidas ou comentários? Entre em contato conosco:

Produção de ovos em sistemas alternativos (sem gaiolas): tendências e impacto ao nível do bem-estar das poedeiras

Os sistemas de produção de ovos sem gaiolas, também designados por “alternativos”, são uma das mais importantes tendências das últimas décadas. Estes sistemas alojam já mais de 60% das poedeiras da União Europeia (Gráfico 1), e a Comissão Europeia admitiu mesmo a hipótese de banir a utilização de gaiolas a partir de 2027, em todo o território comunitário. A percentagem de poedeiras em sistemas alternativos também tem aumentado incessantemente nos Estados Unidos (EUA): actualmente cifra-se em 39%, mais do dobro do verificado em 2018 (18%). Prevê-se que esta percentagem continue a aumentar nos anos vindouros: num recente inquérito, efectuado junto dos maiores produtores de ovos dos EUA, os entrevistados partilharam a previsão de que 66% das poedeiras do país estarão alojadas em sistemas alternativos em 2030. Finalmente, são já numerosos os exemplos, a nível mundial, de empresas de distribuição, transformação de alimentos, restauração ou hotelaria, bem como de grandes produtores de ovos, que se comprometeram a eliminar as gaiolas das respectivas cadeias de fornecimento.

Gráfico 1: Percentagem de galinhas poedeiras alojadas em cada sistema (gaiolas enriquecidas, solo, ar livre ou biológico), na União Europeia. Fonte: Comissão Europeia.

Fracturas da quilha

As fracturas da quilha (Imagem 1) são um importante problema de bem-estar animal para o sector de produção de ovos. Os sistemas alternativos têm sido associados a significativos aumentos da prevalência e da gravidade das fracturas da quilha (FQ), e a maioria dos investigadores acredita que essas fracturas são devidas à ocorrência de colisões com o equipamento do pavilhão. Porém, um estudo recente concluiu que as referidas colisões não podem ser a causa da maioria das fracturas, tendo os seus autores proposto que as FQ se desenvolvem a partir do interior do osso, por um mecanismo ainda desconhecido.

Imagem 1: Fracturas da quilha, de normal (esquerda) a máxima gravidade (direita). Fonte: Wilkins et al. (2011).

Tecnologia de Substituição Total (Total Replacement Technology™): impacto sobre a qualidade da casca, a excreção de minerais e a saúde óssea

As rações para animais têm sido suplementadas, desde há décadas, com altos níveis de minerais inorgânicos (MI). Esses MI interagem negativamente com importantes nutrientes, tais como outros minerais, vitaminas, anti-oxidantes e enzimas, o que reduz o valor nutricional da dieta. Além deste efeito negativo, a utilização de níveis altos de MI é ainda responsável por um elevado conteúdo de minerais no estrume. De modo a reduzir a excreção desses minerais e, por conseguinte, o impacto ambiental associado, é fundamental reduzir o nível de suplementação mineral nas rações, sem sacrificar a saúde e o desempenho dos animais.

As empresas de selecção genética obtiveram progressos notáveis ao nível da persistência da postura e da qualidade da casca. Existem actualmente “standards” de produção até às 100 semanas, e a produtividade média das poedeiras até essa idade pode exceder 500 ovos. Todavia, em muitos países a reposição dos bandos por volta das 80 semanas é ainda prática corrente, em consequência de factores não-genéticos que afectam o desempenho das aves e a qualidade da casca. De entre esses factores, destacam-se os defeitos da casca, que são o principal factor de antecipação da reposição de um bando.

A optimização do desempenho das poedeiras e da qualidade da casca, em simultâneo com a redução da excreção de minerais no estrume, pode ser conseguida através da substituição de MI por níveis inferiores de minerais orgânicos (MO). Qiu et al. (2020) obtiveram uma significativa redução dos teores de minerais no estrume, nomeadamente Zinco (Zn), Manganês (Mn), Cobre (Cu) e Ferro (Fe) (-44%, -53%, -58% e -61%, respectivamente), quando os MI foram totalmente substituídos por níveis muito inferiores desses minerais (apenas 1/3 dos níveis de suplementação com MI) sob a forma de proteinatos Bioplex® Zn, Mn, Cu e Fe, produzidos pela Alltech. Ainda nesse estudo, foi observada uma significativa redução da percentagem de ovos rejeitados (casca mole, partidos, deformados e outros defeitos).

Imagem 2: Tecnologia de Substituição Total (TRT).

Mais recentemente, foi realizado um estudo em poedeiras castanhas, alojadas em sistemas alternativos (cinco explorações), com o objectivo de investigar o efeito da substituição de MI por MO, ao nível de vários parâmetros de produção e de bem-estar animal: resistência da casca, excreção de minerais e características da quilha e da tíbia*.

As aves dos grupos de Controlo e Tratamento receberam dietas com as mesmas especificações, excepto quanto aos níveis e fontes de Zn, Cu, Mn, Fe e Se. A dieta do Controlo continha apenas MI, aos níveis usuais. A dieta do Tratamento foi suplementada apenas com MO, de acordo com a estratégia da Tecnologia de Substituição Total (TRT): os MI foram totalmente substituídos por proteinatos Bioplex® Zn, Mn, Cu e Fe, em níveis muito inferiores (apenas 40%, aproximadamente, dos níveis de minerais utilizados na dieta de Controlo), e o Se inorgânico foi substituído por selénio orgânico (Sel-Plex®, produzido pela Alltech).

Apesar da significativa redução dos níveis de suplementação mineral, ao longo do ensaio a resistência da casca foi significativamente maior nas aves do Tratamento (p˂0.05), e foram alcançados teores de minerais nas fezes (Zn, Mn, Cu, Ca, K e Na) significativamente menores (p˂0.05, Tabela 1). Estes resultados demonstram, uma vez mais, que a Tecnologia de Substituição Total  (TRT) permite uma diminuição significativa da excreção de minerais nas fezes, devido à maior biodisponibilidade dos proteinatos Bioplex®. A diminuição da excreção de Cálcio (Ca), Potássio (K) e Sódio (Na) é, provavelmente, uma consequência da redução das interacções entre minerais após remover os MI da dieta, o que permite uma melhoria da absorção intestinal.

Tabela 1: Teores de minerais nas fezes

A força de fractura e os teores de cálcio (Ca) e fósforo (P) da tíbia foram idênticos para o Tratamento e o Controlo (Gráfico 2). Os teores de Ca e P da quilha foram maiores nas aves do Tratamento, enquanto que o teor de cinzas e a força de fractura da quilha foram menores (p˂0.05, Gráfico 3). No entanto, as aves do Tratamento tiveram menor grau de lesão da quilha comparativamente às do Controlo, tanto na porção caudal (p˂0.05, Tabela 2), como nas porções média e cranial desse osso; isto significa que no grupo do Tratamento houve menor percentagem de aves com lesões da quilha (fracturas e/ou deformações).

Gráfico 2: Propriedades químicas e mecânicas da Tíbia

Tabela 2: Grau de lesão da Quilha

Gráfico 3: Propriedades químicas e mecânicas da Quilha

As aves do Tratamento apresentaram menor força de fractura da quilha e menor teor de cinzas nesse osso. Conforme descrito em investigação prévia, o processo de consolidação das FQ está associado à formação de calo ósseo, no qual está presente maior conteúdo mineral. Um maior número de FQ resulta em maior formação de calo ósseo, o que poderá explicar os resultados deste estudo.

A presença de maior grau de lesão da quilha no grupo com maior força de fractura (Controlo) sugere a existência de outros factores estruturais do osso, ainda não identificados, que influenciam o desenvolvimento das lesões da quilha. Esta hipótese está de acordo com os resultados de investigação recente sobre este tema (Thøfner et al., 2020).

Em resumo, os resultados demonstram que a Tecnologia de Substituição Total (TRT) permite aumentar a resistência da casca e diminuir a excreção de minerais, em simultâneo com a manutenção da resistência dos ossos (tíbia) e a melhoria das lesões da quilha.  

* Apresentado no XIXth European Symposium on the Quality of Eggs and Egg Products, Cracóvia (Polónia), Setembro/2023 (Estevinho, J., Walker, H., Taylor-Pickard, J. Total Replacement Technology™ (TRT) improves eggshell strength and keel bone health, while reducing mineral excretion).

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Per un allevatore è frustrante non vedere vacche in calore da fecondare, trovare molte bovine vuote alla diagnosi di gravidanza, sentirsi dire dal veterinario che sono piene di cisti e accorgersi che la prima causa di eliminazione di animali è per infertilità. Tutto questo è frustrante ma anche antieconomico perché, solo se i giorni medi lattazione sono bassi, si ha la massima produzione di latte e questo parametro è influenzato dalla frequenza dei parti. La nutrizione ha sulla fertilità un ruolo molto importante, anche se non è l’unico fattore… 

Ecco qualche consiglio da Alltech:

1. Occhio al periparto: il periparto (transizione) è il periodo più critico durante la carriera produttiva e riproduttiva della bovina da latte caratterizzato da un bilancio energetico negativo associato ad immunodepressione. Ad una riduzione dell’attività antiossidante a livello cellulare, si abbina un aumento dello stress ossidativo, a causa dell’incremento dell’attività metabolica in relazione al parto, alla diminuzione dell’ingestione e ad una maggior richiesta di minerali e vitamine necessarie alla secrezione di colostro e di latte. La nutrizione gioca quindi un ruolo molto importante nella gestione di questa fase.
2. Non risparmiare sull’integrazione vitaminico-minerale: rappresenta una voce di costo rilevante nel razionamento della bovina e ha un impatto sensibile sulla produttività e fertilità delle bovine. Allo stesso modo, risulta difficile da gestire con precisione e con cognizione di causa.
3. Spazza via i radicali liberi: Alcune molecole hanno spiccata attività antiossidante, tra queste si annoverano enzimi quali superossido dismutasi (zinco dipendente), glutatione perossidasi e catalasi (selenio dipendente) e glutatione reduttasi, vitamine (vitamina E, vitamina A e vitamina C) ed elementi minerali (selenio, rame, zinco).
4. Prediligi i minerali chelati: l’assorbimento (biodisponibilità) degli oligoelementi può essere condizionato da molti fattori legati quali pH intestinale, interazioni/antagonismo tra i minerali. Se somministrati sottoforma organica (chelati) sono maggiormente biodisponibili e quindi assorbibili e più efficaci.
5. Inseminare al momento giusto: Se l’allevamento è dotato di un buon sistema di rilevazione dei calori, come ad esempio i sensori d’attività, se la stalla è costruita in modo che le bovine possano esibire un buon comportamento estrale e se la fecondazione viene effettuata al tempo giusto, la probabilità che avvenga una gravidanza è molto elevata. Verificare quando le bovine vengono effettivamente inseminate. Anticipare la prima fecondazione, o su calore naturale o indotto, prima dei 70 gg dà in genere poche gravidanze, aumenta il rischio d’infezioni uterine, fa consumare molte dosi di seme e, nel caso s’instaurasse una gravidanza, provocherebbe un drastico ”taglio” del picco di lattazione.

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https://www.alltech.com/italy/testimonianze

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What does it take to build a healthy, synthetic salmon gut? When it comes to fish nutrition, a lifetime of health and performance can be greatly influenced by the early stages of the gut microbes. Dr. Martin Llewellyn and Raminta Kazlauskaite of the University of Glasgow are creating new ways to improve sustainable fish feed and drug stability for salmon aquaculture farming with SalmoSim .

The following is an edited transcript of Tom Martin’s interview with Dr. Martin Llewellyn and Raminta Kazlauskaite. Click below to hear the full audio.

Tom:              We're entering a new frontier in fish nutrition and among those conducting cutting-edge research in the field are Dr. Martin Llewellyn, a research scientist at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, and PhD candidate Raminta Kazlauskaite. Llewellyn, author of over 50 peer-reviewed research articles, has expertise in salmonid parasitology and nutrition. Kazlauskaite's focuses are in the fields of bioengineering and molecular biology, and together, they have been working on creating an in vitro system replicating the Atlantic salmon gut. They call it SalmoSim and they're here to talk to us about it. Thank you for joining us.

Martin:            It's nice to be here.

Raminta:        Thank you.

Martin:            Thanks for having us on.

Tom:              What is the problem that you set out to address resulting in the development of SalmoSim?

Martin:            Atlantic salmon are a funny old fish. They're a carnivore and we don't farm many carnivores, so there's a big problem around sustainability of salmon feed, as well as its price because what you have to do to feed a salmon is you have to go out -- when we first started farming salmon, we'd have to go out and catch an awful lot of wild fish, grind it up, and feed that to the salmon.

                        These days, things are changing quite a lot. We're feeding new feeds to salmon all the time with a focus on insect-based, plant-based feeds including things like soy, gluten, protein. What this means is we're basically challenging the salmon gut every time with things it's not entirely used to. There are so many different feed additives in different protein sources out there on the market that there's an awful lot of in vivo testing. That means testing of salmon to see what they're happiest on, what they're healthiest on, what they grow best on.

                        Essentially, we've built this system to act as a pre-screening tool because these trials are really expensive and there aren't many places that do them, so it's a massive bottleneck. You're looking at estimates for a single trial of around £150,000, maybe $200,000 just to try a couple of different ingredients in the sea cage to see whether your fish are going to perform well on your feed. What we've developed the system for, as well as to do pure science because we're from the University of Glasgow, we're not strictly a commercial entity, but as well as doing pure science, we'd like this system to be a useful way for people to triage or pre-screen, so you come with ten different alternatives or ten different ingredients and be able to narrow that down to two that then take on to a trial in real salmon and reduce the cost of the whole process of getting from these new feed ingredients, new additives that people dream up in the lab all the way through to having the right feeds to bring up healthy, happy, productive fish.

Tom:              What are you seeing in terms of cost savings?

Martin:            At this stage, we're right at the beginning. We know that we could do it substantially under the cost of a current feed trial but where ours doesn't completely replace a feed trial in vivo. It's one of these things that's kind of like for like cost saving. It's hard to estimate that. I don't quite know what that is at this stage, but it's likely to be very substantial just because the cost of what we need to do in the lab is just really a tiny fraction of the cost of what people have to pay for these in vivo trials.

Tom:              This technology is created in vitro. Do you want to tell us more? Raminta, do you want to talk about that?

Raminta:        Yeah. What we do, we literally just transfer all the salmon gut inside the lab. We have three bioreactors, but they represent three different salmon gut pieces, stomach, pyloric cecum, and midgut, so it's similar to us humans like stomach, small intestine, and large intestine. What we do, we literally just take bacteria from these three different gut compartments and transfer them into three bioreactors or jars and then we set the right conditions and we get it running.

Tom:              I was going to ask you what it looks like in the lab, but I guess you've just described that.

Raminta:        Yeah. Literally we have a feed bottle. We have three bioreactors and then we have waste and it's continuously going. In other words, we just use SalmoSim to produce really expensive salmon poo.

Tom:              Okay. If you could expand on that and give us an idea in a practical sense how this tool is used.

Martin:            First, I'll tell you what a bioreactor is. A bioreactor is like a very fancy fermentation vessel and a lot of the people that we work with at the University of Glasgow work on anaerobic digestion of food waste. All the stomach is essentially is an anaerobic digestion tool, so we've taken that same technology of these closed units where you can change the pH and monitor the pH, change the temperature, monitor the temperature.

                        We're putting in enzymes directly extracted from salmon. Also, we're putting in the microbial communities the bacteria, as Raminta says. What we would do when we get a new feed, what we tend to do is stabilize the system on a feed, our control feed, and then change the feed and then essentially begin to introduce that into the system, which is essentially grinding it up, feeding it through the pipes, and beginning to take it into this three-compartment model, so it'll go into the stomach. It'll be exposed to these different pHs, enzymes, and then it'll get transferred into the pyloric cecum. Again, there'll be different pH, different enzymes it's going to get exposed to, the microbes as well, and then moving on to the midgut. It'll get exposed there.

                        If we're looking at drug stability, let's say we were taking one of these sea lice drugs, and quite often, some of them are in-feed, some of them aren't in-feed, but with an in-feed one, you absolutely want to make sure that it's not getting released in the stomach, so there's very little absorption that happens in the stomach in Atlantic salmon. Most of the absorption happens in the pyloric cecum. If your capsules, if you like, if your microcapsules you've absorbed your drug onto are releasing all that drug and the drug is potentially getting degraded inside your stomach compartment then really you're losing a lot of efficacy with the delivery of your drug dose. So what you want to do is make sure that the highest pharmacologically relevant concentrations of the drug are in the pyloric cecum. Again, we could take various different combinations of the drug, maybe try them alongside different kinds of feeds, for example, and see which feed combination or encapsulation combination delivers the best dose of drug to where we want it to get it to. That's I guess an example of how --

Tom:              So that's the ultimate holy grail that you're going for?

Raminta:        No. We look at [0:07:03] [Indiscernible] stability hopefully, as well as probiotic survival in different gut compartments and how do we affect bacterial communities, VFA analysis.

Martin:            Certainly, anything that you want to do to a real fish, we can give you a sort of an early warning system to rank the different possibilities in order of their likely efficacy in an in vivo model.

Tom:              How could a greater understanding of these processes reveal pathways to improve growth efficiency of fish fed on plant-based diets?

Martin:            Lots of different ways. The first and most obvious way is I think probably digestibility, so just how readily large complex organic molecules like protein is broken down into smaller organic molecules like amino acids and then presumably absorbed by the fish.

                        The slightly further on the line things are the impacts on the microbiome. So at the moment, we could detect whether there was a significant perturbation in the microbial communities by bringing in sort of a plant-based feed. The science is less developed there, but if you're shifting your microbial communities away from a stable, potentially complex microbial community to one microbial community dominated by a small number of microorganisms, that's normally a bit of a red flag. Those types of communities are normally more easily invaded like pathogens, for example. There are also other things beyond digestibility related to the microbial composition of the gut that I think we can predict with our system in relation to what happens if you feed them on a soy meal-based feed certainly for plant protein. That's the main thing.

Raminta:        For feed, yeah.

Tom:              Alltech as a leading agricultural biotechnology company has been making important inroads into the aquafeed sector. What is the company's connection with this research that you're conducting?

Martin:            We were dreaming this idea up about three years ago. There's a guy called John Sweetman and someone else called Philip Lyons and these guys have both been working in aquaculture for a long time. I was interested in this initially as a tool to understand what are the ecological processes that underpin microbial community assembly, so why are microbiomes like what they are from a pure academic perspective, but talking to these guys at actually this kind of conference where industry and academia are brought together and you get these lovely link-ups and explosive, potentially explosive, disruptive combinations then we got to talking about this. They were enthused. They saw potentially some of the early promise for some of the applications I've just described to you, so Alltech very kindly funded a PhD student, and that's Ruminta.

                        Yeah, Alltech have been really a major catalyst for actually getting this idea off the door and brought it into reality. Ruminta actually made that reality happen. I never believed we'd get as far as we have today. It's all Ruminta's hard work.

Tom:              I'm really interested in something you just said too about this conference and how it brings together industry and academia. Have you seen sparks fly this time?

Martin:            Yes. Certainly, I've had some interesting conversations around the place and you can see interesting conversations are being had I think across all different sectors. I'm really pleased to see there's increasing people talking about sustainability in livestock production that's all the way from agriculture to chickens and beef, et cetera. I'm particularly impressed by how far and how much industry is recognizing that as important with an aquaculture session, so I sit within my aquaculture sessions, having sat with a few other sessions and I really think we in aqua -- I don't want to blow our trumpet too much, but we're really thinking about is what we're doing sustainable.

                        We've got these brilliant feed conversion ratios compared to huge amounts of other -- we're down at FCRs of 0.8 whereas poultry, I don't know, but they're around 3. We're talking about ingredients, where are they coming from. We can't rely on marine protein, so there's a real environmental responsibility, I think, that is there in the aqua sessions and I really hope it's building in the other sessions too. I think there's been lots of really good open discussion around that here, which is being really encouraging, I think.

Tom:              Yeah. I think it's safe to say that sustainability has quickly become something of a watchword or a guide star for [0:12:04] [Indiscernible] our clients.

Martin:            Yeah, that's right.

Tom:              What's beyond this research? Are there uses for this technology in other species, do you think?

Martin:            Yeah.

Raminta:        Definitely. It's just time to validate and to see what is happening inside of a SalmoSim or other species that are representative of what happens in real fish, so just time and money, yeah, but it's definitely, definitely possible.

Martin:            Yeah. We've taken about two years to get this far with Atlantic salmon, but we've learned an awful lot along the way, so I do think it is transferable, but like Ruminta says --

Raminta:        It just takes time.

Martin:            It takes time, yeah.

Raminta:        And some resources, yeah.

Martin:            Yeah. You could apply it to tilapia. You could apply it to trout, just a bit of time, a bit of resource, and demand really.

Tom:              Dr. Martin Llewellyn, a research scientist at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and PhD candidate Raminta Kazlauskaite.

I want to learn more about aquaculture nutrition and management.

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Jean Virmoux prépare ses rations avec une mélangeuse KEENAN et les conseils du service InTouch. «Dès la première année, j’ai économisé une quantité considérable de fourrages. Aujourd’hui, ma SAU couvre 25 vêlages supplémentaires, qui me portent à 125 vêlages par an».

Depuis l’arrivée de sa mélangeuse KEENAN MF 360 de 20 m³ en 2015, beaucoup de choses ont changé pour Mathieu Renaud, alors en conversion bio, et ses 45 vaches.  Avec le Kit Balle Entière, il intègre de grandes quantités de fibres longues ce qui était difficile avec son ancienne mélangeuse à vis verticale. Son mélange est prêt en moins de 25 minutes, avec trois balles d’enrubannage de méteil, de luzerne et de ray-grass, non pré-coupées. Il suffit de 3 à 4 minutes aux doigts du Kit Balle Entière pour dérouler chacune des balles, chargées les unes après les autres.

« J’ai économisé plus du tiers de foin de prairie et de luzerne cet hiver ». Nous explique Christophe Abos, qui a inauguré sa mélangeuse KEENAN fin octobre 2017 pour ses 60 limousines en stabulation. Auparavant, c’était du libre service. L’éleveur devait distribuer l’équivalent de 20 kg de foin par vache allaitante et par jour. « J’avais beaucoup de gaspillage autour des râteliers ».

Les associés du Gaec de Kervatal, font partie de ces éleveurs, de plus en plus nombreux, qui ont décidé d’ensiler du maïs épi. Pour Yannick Bolloré et Angélique Claudic, « ce fourrage répond à notre volonté d’être le plus possible autonomes en alimentation ». En assurant un apport satisfaisant d’énergie, les 7 kg (4,2 kg MS) de mais épi leur permet de porter à 3kg MS la part de l’ensilage d’herbe et celle de méteil dans la ration (22 kg MS). En parallèle, les éleveurs ont réduit leurs quantités de concentrés.