WELF ▶▶▶ARE
Research at the University of Al- berta, Canada, showed that skip-day feeding is not the most ideal strategy.
more aggressive perhaps because they are hungry more of the time or experience stress because they are uncertain when their next meal will be. Farmers therefore see high rates of feather pecking, more mortality and lower overall flock performance compared to flocks fed every day. Of course, the economic benefits of better flock performance, more chicks per BBH and better offspring performance are fully realized at integrated operations. However, if an opera- tion is strictly broiler-breeder it will still reap economic bene- fits from better flock performance and more chicks per hen and thus be able to offer their broiler producer customers better chicks. Zuidhof also notes that from a product market- ing perspective, chicken from broilers farmed in such a sys- tem could be certified welfare-friendly and fetch a premium price and simply outcompete conventional chicken because customers prefer it.
Precision feeding To research BBH feeding strategies, Zuidhof has created a pre- cision feeding system. Each BBH has an RFID chip and can en- ter the feeder many times a day but is only provided feed ac- cording to how far her weight deviates from the daily pre-programmed target weight. And although such a system is not yet economically viable commercially, there is every reason to believe it may become so. “I’m working with an en- gineer to make my system more economical,” says Zuidhof, “but we need to understand that precision feeding also pro- vides benefits for male fertility. On broiler breeder farms there is wide variation in the males, more than with hens, but precision feeding results in very strong male uniformity with a high fertility rate. Infertile eggs are a huge economic
32 ▶ POULTRY WORLD | No. 7, 2021
problem, with males typically having to be replaced at a rate of about 40% in a process called spiking. So increasing male fertility is another huge economic benefit of precision feed- ing that will make the return on investment timeline all the more attractive.” He further points to the possibility of a simplified precision feeding system where there is a scale that birds must stand on to feed and, while they are not identified individually, they are all automatically weighed throughout the day as they ap- proach the feeder, their weights compared against a target weight and meal volumes provided accordingly. However, Zuidhof notes that precision feeding is only one factor that influences chick production. Photoperiod and other factors also need to be carefully managed. And because there is in- sufficient collective knowledge on BBH nutrition, he also wants to study nutrient requirements and how feed timing and the use of different formulations can affect performance. For example, it has been found that a calcium-rich feed in the afternoon is best for layers because the calcium is then much more readily available for egg formation. Something that needs to be investigated in BBH as well.
Hard to convince Looking forward, Zuidhof says “I think it will be hard to convince the industry to move away from skip-day, but as the consumer landscape continues to evolve, the longer we use it, the worse it looks.” More transparency is needed, in his view, along with real change. “We need to show that, yes, we have skip-day but we’re discovering there are ways to man- age feeding that are better for the birds. The good news is that these ways are better for producers’ bottom line as well.”
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