In this opportunity, aviNews International interviewed Dr. Samuel Aggrey to talk about the feed efficiency in broilers at the World’s Poultry Congress in Paris.
Dr. Aggrey is a professor in the Department of Poultry Science at the University of Georgia. He is a Richard B. Russell Professor/Chair, and his research is about nutrigenomics, functional genomics, bioinformatics, growth, and skeletal modeling.
What is feed efficiency?
Technically it refers to the efficiency of the feed use. It means: The amount of feed that you provide to a chicken for the amount of growth that the chicken can do. So, if you feed two chickens, one more feed and one less feed, and they grow the same, the one that you fed less feed is more efficient in translating feed into meat.
What is the relationship between feed efficiency and other performance parameters?
Dr. Aggrey indicated that when we talk about performance, let us just say growth as performance. But there are other criteria for performance. If you take growth, what is the relationship? Feed constitutes about 70% of the cost of production. So, if the feed is sufficiently used, then you are cutting down the cost of production.
If you cut the cost of production your profitability or production efficiency goes up. So that is why feed efficiency is very important in poultry production system and also with other traits of economic importance.
- Effects of the feed restriction programs on the feed efficiency
- Available tools either in the field or laboratory to evaluate the feed efficiency
- What are the problems on poultry productions that do not allow to achieve good feed efficiency?
- How can we improve feed efficiency without increasing the feed cost?
To watch the full interview with Dr. Samuel Aggrey, check out the video or click here
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