1. Poultry industry is becoming increasingly receptive to the use of exogenous enzymes supplementation.
a) Consistent increase in the price of feed ingredients has been a major constraint in most of developing countries like India.
b) In an environment of high-cost corn and Soya diets, many feed producers are choosing to substitute corn and Soya with other crops that have less nutritive value.
c) Enzyme supplementation to poultry rations has a positive effect on feed digestibility and leads to better productivity and performance.
d) Enzymatic supplementation can improve the nutritive value of cereals containing high levels of soluble non-starch polysaccharides.
e) Several studies have shown that enzymes in poultry can enhance the animal’s performance to a level compared with that obtained in corn-Soya based diets.
2. Phytase, Xylanase, Carbohydrases and Protease are the major enzymes being used in animal feed :
a) to improve digestion of phytate phosphorus,
b) non-starch polysaccharide
c) and protein respectively.
3. In the past few years, the market for poultry enzymes has changed significantly with phytase, followed by xylanases and others.
a) Other enzymes like amylases, proteases and mannanases are being used by few poultry producers.
4. A combination of different enzymes are being used by Poultry producers.
a) Commercially, these supplements are characterized by being a cocktail with different enzymes with different specificities.
b) Since energy is the most expensive nutrient in the diet, the combination of amylase, xylanase, protease and Mannanase enzymes to poultry diets provides producers the opportunity to reduce feed costs.
c) Typically, such enzyme supplementation costs around
Rs 150 to 250 per ton of feed.
5. Enzymes are derived from microorganisms :
a) like bacteria (eg. Bacillus subtilis, E. coli and B. stearothermophils),
b) fungi (Triochoderma, Asperigillus)
c) and yeast (S. cerevisiae);
d) these are carefully selected to substrate specificity and cultured under controlled conditions.
6. Application of enzymes in poultry feed:
a) Enzymes can be used in following ways in poultry feed:
b) Use of matrix values to reduce the costly raw material,
c) the matrix values quantify the extent to which nutrients are released by using the enzyme.
d) Using matrix values one can reformulate the feed and reduce the quantity of costly ingredients for energy, protein and minerals and reduce feed cost from
Rs 1000 to 1200 for ton of feed.
7. Addition of enzyme to the standard feed formulation achieves :
a) improved bird performance feed
conversion ratio,
b) egg production in layers .
8. Enzyme usage gets better return on investment(ROI) through improved performance ie.
a) reduction in FCR,
b) better weight gain,
c) reduction in days to market in Broilers.
9. Least cost feed formulation without hampering the performance is a major goal for poultry feed millers ,integrators and Poultry farmers.
Author:
Dr V. Rajendra Prasad
