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Feeding Turkeys and Other Feed Components for Poultry

One word on feeding programs for turkeys. Again, consumption is seasonal to further processing. Most of the turkeys for further processing or certain seasons. Very similar to broiler, 0-4 week starter diets, 28-26% crude protein and 2,850-2,950 ME. Grower diets usually fed from 4-12 weeks, 23-20% crude protein, 3,050-3,150 ME. Developer diets anywhere from 12-15 weeks, we cut down the crude protein to 18% and 3,225 ME. Finisher diet, 16-20 week, again, cut down the protein to 16%, ME is maintained at 3,350-3,250. As I mentioned, this is more important to us, more into feeding of layers and poultry, I won’t be going in detail on turkey.

When we feed poultry, other than the nutrients that I mentioned, there are other minor components. The major components I mentioned include water, carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins and minerals. There are other minor components, we call them feed additives include pellet binders, drugs, antibiotics, medications, mold inhibitor, parasitic preventatives, antioxidants, pigmentation agents, enzymes, probiotics. All these minor ingredients are getting a lot of interest and attention among nutritionists. I will not be going into detail on all of these ingredients because that is beyond the scope of this class. A typical example is pigmentation agents and probiotics getting a lot of interest. Some of the pigmentation agents can have antioxidants, antioxidants effect as well as health enhancing effects. Some of the probiotics could have a lot of health enhancing effect on the birds. Some of these minor ingredients are getting major attention among nutritionists.

To wrap up this module. We started about talking feeding poultry. For this module, I focused on feeding layers and broilers. The goals and the objectives for these two are entirely different. Layers are kept for 70-72 weeks of age and they are fed for egg production and egg quality. Broilers are usually kept for 6 weeks and they are raised for meat, meat quality, feed efficiency. The goals of these two classes of poultry are entirely different. When we formulate rations, we have to take into account of our goals, our need and also what we are aiming for, the market. Product yield, product quality is gaining a lot of attention. Most of the broiler meat is being sold as further processed, higher yield, especially breast meat, premium priced. Birds are being raised for high quality breast meat yield. Broiler birds are raised for high quality and high yield. Laying birds are also raised for high quality, shell quality, as well as internal quality. When we formulate rations, we have to understand that there is not a single nutrient that is, there is not a single true value for each nutrient, there is bird to bird variation, as well as the goal of production. I hope this module was helpful to you in formulating rations for broilers and layers.

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