FEED FORMULATION ▶▶▶
Feed intelligence in practice: NIR application in Europe
With feed costs accounting for up to 70% of the total costs of animal production and the recent spike in the price of ingredients, precision nutrition is becoming increasingly important as a way to stay competitive in the animal industry.
BY GUSTAVO CORDERO, GLOBAL TECHNICAL SERVICES MANAGER AND GWYNETH JONES, EMEA TECHNICAL SERVICES MANAGER AB VISTA
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Poland Italy Wheat 22 GB EU Poland Italy Barley ▶ ALL ABOUT FEED | Volume 29, No. 3, 2021 GB EU
eed formulation software allows nutritionists to for- mulate diets that meet the set requirements of the animal and assesses feed ingredient cost and nutrient content. A key area for development in terms of tack-
ling the multi-factorial challenges expected to affect the feed sector is likely to be real-time feed formulation, which ena- bles nutritionists to ensure that the diets being manufactured consistently deliver the nutrients required. Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIR) is a well-established method for quality control screening of feed and ingredients, and it is a fast, in- expensive, non-destructive alternative to traditional chemical assays. The latest software and hardware developments that allow a more in-depth understanding of raw material and feed quality can be used by nutritionists to meet the specific requirements of each animal and achieve optimal production.
Figure 1 - Average values of apparent metabolizable energy (AME) in wheat and barley samples from different countries.
AMe (kcal/kg)
NIR, which has been used in the feed industry for over 30 years, is approved by AOAC to determine moisture, nitro- gen (crude protein) and acid detergent fibre (ADF) in feed and forages. This becomes even more important considering that there is considerable variation iningredient nutritional quality due to several factors including seasons, cultivars, soil quality and growing, harvesting and post-harvesting condi- tions and even individual raw material deliveries from the same source. The extent of this variability and its potential economic impact remain much less well understood and present a challenge for feed manufacturers and animal pro- ducers, who generally maintain safety margins in their feed formulas to account for this ingredient nutritional variability.
Traditional quality control assays are costly and time-consuming The cost of wet chemistry analysis is high for large numbers of sample and it may not address the question of feed and in- gredient variability. The nutritional variability of raw materials presents a risk of under or overestimating nutrients, leading to poor animal performance and/or economic losses. In addi- tion to the cost of wet chemistry, there is an average 1-2 weeks’ turnaround time to receive results after sample submission. The high cost of chemical analysis also limits the amount of samples sent, restricting the correct information around the real characteristic of the raw material used in the feed formulation. NIR uses light from the near infrared range of the electromag- netic spectrum to measure the absorbance of a sample at dif- ferent wavelengths. This absorbance data is input into cali- bration models which can be used to predict the nutritional composition of a feed or ingredient sample, including param- eters such as moisture, starch, protein and fat. However, it is also possible to build NIR calibrations beyond the usual tradi- tional parameters to include predictions of reactive and total lysine in protein sources, in vivo energy values in cereals, phytate-P and non-starch polysaccharides (NSP). Such infor- mation has the potential to deliver cost savings through for- mulation, supplier selection and ultimately animal
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