Broileropt Feed Optimization Program

BroilerOpt Feed Optimization Program

by

Feed2Gain, LLC

PURPOSE OF BroilerOpt Program:

Profitability of live broiler chicken production is largely a function of selecting the best nutritional prescription for growth under the conditions and costs experienced at each production unit. The Management team modifies the nutritional content and amount of each feed attempting to affect performance and so profitability. An intuitive selection of the optimal combination of the diets is hardly possible due to the complexity of bird responses to dietary and environmental factors, as well as to the multitude of interactions among these variables. BroilerOpt is an advanced tool designed to assist the Nutritionist in this decision-making process. The purpose of BroilerOpt is to give the Nutritionist Confidence in the decisions made in utilization of the purchased ingredients to provide optimal nutrition for each production unit.

There are four major parts to BroilerOpt aimed at this Purpose.

1.  Calibration of the model to the existing conditions of a grower operation. What is best for any operation is based on current growth, current ingredient values and cost, and company objective for the product. That makes each operation unique and the nutritional needs of the animals unique in order to minimize cost, assure quality and optimize profits.

2.  Current Flock growth estimation with accuracy shows what will happen with diet changes so that unexpected results are avoided. Small changes in feed weights, energy and amino acid contents of feeds can be quickly considered.

3.  Optimization of nutrition, assuring that the best nutrition is provided to the birds, given your ingredient costs and environmental conditions. Genetics of broilers do not change quickly, but ingredient costs do. When there are significant changes in ingredient cost relationships, BroilerOpt can quickly realign the values to give “best cost” production, including milling and delivery costs, carcass composition and feed conversion constants.

4.  Flock Analysis provides Evaluation of the nutrition that you provide can be done with the accurate prediction of growth with the actual inputs and the environment you have. This takes into account variation in feed weights actually consumed by each flock. This accuracy is essential to identify changes in calibration or possible inconsistencies in performance. The complex wide variations from each feed are highlighted. This Evaluation of flock performance can give early warnings on changes in ingredient quality by diet and flock health with age, both of which can cause disruption to production and costs.

Predicting Impact of Diet Changes:

BroilerOpt can evaluate a specific feeding program by using the “Current Calculation” tab. The program predicts the growth of a flock; field feed conversion and flock age to final weight within a fraction of a day of age after calibration. Rather than follow the “current wisdom” rumored about the industry, the Nutritionist makes decisions based on actual ingredient costs and actual historical production and environmental conditions.

To achieve this accuracy, the program uses a model of broiler growth that allows the user to calibrate the program to his/her own growth experience using his/her own diet contents and actual commercial outcomes of average flock weight and age. The program indicates how closely it has fit the given inputs by showing the feed conversion of the final fit when growth is calculated to the expected live weight and age.

Feeding Program Optimization:

Once the program has been calibrated with actual commercial experience and current ingredient costs are entered, BroilerOpt can determine the best rations with optimal nutrient density, and develops a feeding schedule for growing birds controlling the factors that contribute most to improved profits.

Unless specifically asked to evaluate the amino acids, BroilerOpt generates diets using user-assigned protein and amino acid needs. When you run BroilerOpt with your assigned protein and amino acid specifications, BroilerOpt scales your amino acid percentages according to the specified or optimized energy concentrations. During Current Flock evaluations and during Optimization, the program can evaluate amino acid profiles that give best cost growth given the ingredients and costs of the complex.

Flock Evaluation:

While BroilerOpt considers a multitude of factors that affect grow out performance, no models currently account for all sources of variation. Environmental factors beyond temperature, such as rearing management conditions, sanitation, and disease, can result in performance better or, more typically, poorer than predictions.

The Flock Evaluation feature of BroilerOpt separates one of the major sources of variation in flock weight and performance; diet feed weights; from the rest. The program attributes any complex-wide variation to the feed given during the time that the variation occurs. Variation that occurs on a house by house level is attributed to that house. This allows identifying short falls in ingredients that are given in specific diets (or introduced into feeds at a given time) and better identification of grower performance.

History and Basic Concepts in BroilerOpt:

A number of outstanding scientists have worked on modeling of animal growth. The earliest reports go back to the 19th century. Another former Monsanto Co. employee wrote an excellent book titled “A Theory of Feeding and Growth of Animals” ( Springer Verlag, Berlin, 322 pp., 1982).

The first model I developed was in 1988 called the Ivey Growth Model™ (IGM™) while with Monsanto Co. and it was influenced by The Edenburgh Growth Model as explained so well by Prof. G. Emmans and work by Dr. G. Pesti, University of Georgia. Many of the concepts in BroilerOpt were first developed in that model.[1]

The broiler growth model used in BroilerOpt is largely based on the concepts and results gained from developing OmniPro™ while at Novus International. In turn, that model was based on equations developed by Drs. Shmuel Hurwitz and Hovav Talpaz, while at the Agricultural Research Organization of Israel. Dr. Hurwitz’ equations were far superior to others I had seen in accuracy and experimental verification.

There are published references evaluating the Omnipro Growth Model. Below are the references. BroilerOpt has the same growth predictive equation set as OmniPro.

Oviedo-Rondón E.O. , C.A. Fritts and P.W. Waldroup, 2003. Accuracy of OmniPro ™ II predictions for amino acid needs without minimum crude protein requirement. International Journal of Poultry Science 2 (3): 178-182.

Oviedo-Rondón E.O. and P. W. Waldroup, 2002. Models to estimate amino acid requirements for broiler chickens: A Review. International Journal of Poultry Science 1(5): 106-113.

Oviedo-Rondón E.O. , C. A. Fritts and P. W. Waldroup, 2002. Accuracy of Omnipro ™ II estimations for amino acid requirements of broilers. International Journal of Poultry Science 1 (5): 119-126.

Some concepts that are important in the program are these:

1.  A unique feeding program includes the diet contents and the amount of each feed. Knowing the dietary restrictions of formulation are not enough and just knowing what the content of the feeds being given is not sufficient to accurately describe the nutrition given an animal. The dietary regime includes feed weights.

2.  The nutrient specifications and content of the diet that the model uses to predict growth are Energy, Protein and up to 12 Amino Acids. These inputs have to be in a certain order as the first 14 nutrients. Energy has to be the first nutrient that the program sees. Protein is second followed by up to 12 amino acids. This order is critical to the growth predictions of the modeling part of the program.

3.  One does not need to have all 12 amino acids to run the model. The model assumes that any amino acid with a zero value is not restricting growth. If the user typically uses only four or five amino acids for least costing their diets, then those four or five amino acids should have values and any amino acids that are not fully valued in the matrix should be set to zero in all ingredients.

4.  One point that is often overlooked in feed evaluations is that the genetic growth of the bird, the part that is captured in calibration, does not change quickly. Ingredient costs are the major factor impacting the change in optimal feed density and cost of growth. If feed ingredient costs are not changing quickly, the optimal point to feed will not change.

5.  The program includes a least cost feeding program that expects the user to put in minimum and maximum levels of energy and protein (and therefore amino acids). There is no point in seeing optimum feeding regimes that are not going to be fed. Looking outside the range of energy and protein where one has a comfort level may be useful, but having a result that has diets that are acceptable to the Nutritionist is the real goal. Running the model and finding no better solution than the one is use is a great outcome as the Nutritionist knows that the current practice is the best that can be done within the levels of energy and protein that can practically be used in that location.

6.  For the moment, the model determines the energy input and assumes that diet energy values above 2000 are kcal per kg and, therefore, weight is in kg. Values of energy below 2000 are assumed to be kcal per lb and, therefore, weight is in lbs. This will be changed to a selection process as some people are using MCal per lb or MCal per kg, and MJ per kg. It would be impossible to numerically determine the difference between MJ per kg and MCal per kg or per lb. So, this will change. Also, the price per unit weight of feed is currently price per kg or price per lb. That will be selectable, as well.

7.  A detail is that when the least cost program is run in the Current flock tab, the nutrient contents determined by the least cost program are stored in the grid. Also, the feed weights used are stored in the grid. The last diet floats to complete the growth of the broiler flock to the designated weight. That is to say, the first, second, etc. weights are used exactly as given, even resulting in blended feeds on some days, and the last diet will be increased or decreased to get the exact weight. If the target weight is attained before the last diet would have been fed, then that diet is given a value of zero and the actual weights of the other diets is recorded.

Initial Use:

The program always opens to the “Current Flock” Tab.

There are eight “Menu” items, Files, Load Least Cost, Set Values, Carcass, Daily, Flock Definition, Diet Dilution and Help. These are highlighted with a red circle below. One clicks on the Word and a list of alternatives drops down or a window opens for action.

There are four Tabs, Calibration of Complex, Current Flock, Optimization and Flock Analysis. Current Flock is highlighted with a yellow circle below. Clicking on the tabs changes the information on the form and each is a significant part of the overall program. These are described in detail later.

Initial Calculations:

Once the program is installed, the user can create a new “complex”. First, enter or import the nutrient contents of the diets currently being fed, the amounts of each feed, and adjust the temperature, if desired (click on Show Temperature box near the top on the right). Then, calculate the expected growth for a flock of chickens by clicking on the button called “Current Calculation” which returns the value of broiler growth and feed conversion expected from the feeding program.

The minimum information for running the current calculations are feed cost, feed weight, energy, protein and the amino acids used by the program. If you do not track an amino acid, such as leucine for example, then you assume it is not limiting in your diets and so does the model. Enter “0” for any amino acid level or restriction and the program assumes that it is not limiting.

“Current Flock” Features

There are a lot of features that allow easy use of the program. We will tour some of the features on the Current Flock Tab.

“Open Diets” allows access to stored diet files or importing data from the Brill Program or excel files or text files. The window opens with the diets associated with the current complex loaded. You can transfer those diets by entering the number in the first column of the diet order. 1 is the first diet fed, 2 is second, etc. You can load the same diet multiple times. This could allow altering the medication program or allow starting with the same diet and looking for better protein to energy ratios, etc.

“Save Diets” button does just that. Any changes that are made to a diet during evaluation are not saved to file UNLESS you click on Save Diets. The program uses two files, one for nutrients in the diet, the other for restrictions used in least cost programming. The program allows you to rename the files as you save them, providing the opportunity to create new stored diets without losing the old ones.

Clicking the “Save All Current” button saves any changes made to the ingredient matrix, ingredient costs, target weights or ages. Again, during a session, no entered changes are saved beyond that session unless saved with “Save Diets” and “Save All Current”.

The “Current Calc.” button is not active until diets are selected and your target is set. “Current Calc” uses all the nutritional information to predict the growth expected for the flock to your target. The “Growth Target” is set on the bottom left of the form. Click on that box and the list of possible targets, Live Weight, Age and Feed Intake, are displayed. The program uses the feed information given to predict growth to the target Live Weight or target Flock Age of the flock, adjusting the weight fed of the last feed. If the target is to use the Feed Intake given, then the program reports the weight and age of the flock when the feed is consumed.

Using “Current Calc” without Least Cost Programming

The program does not need to run a least cost linear program to predict growth, but it is usually the choice as this allows cost optimization. However, the box to the right of the Flock Feed Conversion box allows you to select “LP COST” or “GIVEN COST”. Using “Given Cost” allows running the growth prediction without setting up a matrix or diet specifications. This box usually is set to LP COST, but if you transfer the calibration diets (useful to test the calibration), since those diets do not have least cost restrictions associated with them, the box always changes to “GIVEN COST”.