The best broiler chicken performance can be antibiotic-free.

The best broiler chicken performance can be antibiotic-free. Antibiotic growth promoters are losing popularity in the USA, where consumers increasingly demand meat from animals fed antibiotic-free diets. New feeding trials with a specialty protein from HAMLET PROTEIN suggest that producers can overcome the antibiotic-free challenge and improve their profits at the same time. The specialty protein in question is HP AviStart – a highly digestible soy protein for broiler starter feeds, produced by enzymatic co-processing of soybean meal and yeast. Southern Poultry Research, based in Athens, Georgia, USA, conducted two performance trials, each one using 2,400 broilers, which were fed either a control or test starter diet for the first 14 days after hatching. Weight gain and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were calculated at key points during the growth period up to 42 days. While the first trial investigated the effect of HP AviStart in purely antibiotic-free starter diets based on soybean meal, the second compared HP AviStart with the commonly used antibiotic growth promoter BMD – or, by its full name, bacitracin methylene disalicylate. In both trials, HP AviStart was seen to be an efficient alternative to antibiotic-dependent diets. How does it work? The digestive tract is highly immature at hatching and unless feed is easy to digest, many nutrients will pass through the tract unabsorbed. The producers of HP AviStart gently minimized the anti-nutritional factors naturally present in soy protein and, in doing so, remove the barriers to nutrient absorption. This means the chicks get the full benefit of the protein in their feed thus stimulating the development of their gut and a lifetime of healthy growth. Download research here