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What is a Nutrient?

For this class, the word poultry, I will be focusing on species such as broilers and layers. Avian species, other avian species such as ornamental birds, breeder birds and game birds will not be included. The reason for including broiler birds and layer birds is majority of the poultry raised for eggs which is layers and for meat is broilers. For example, the United States has about 337 million layers raised last year and about 7.8 billion broilers.

Feeding of poultry is very important because feed represents over 70% of the cost of raising poultry. Since birds have a very small gut and very small gut size, we have to make sure that the feed that we provide meets all the nutrient requirements of a balanced ration. The feed should contain all the necessary nutrients in the correct proportion or balance.

When we talk about feed, as I mentioned, feed constitutes or feed provides several nutrients. What is a nutrient? A nutrient could be a substance that can promote growth of the bird. A nutrient could be a substance that can maintain life, maintain proper reproduction or that can maintain proper growth. A nutrient is also a substance that can minimize disease or provide disease resistance. Nutrient could also be a substance that can enhance the quality of the product. In poultry, when we talk about products, we are talking about the eggs. Anything that can improve egg quality, that can improve shell quality, that can improve nutritional quality of the meat could also be classified as a nutrient. Now, you know the importance of nutrients.

Why is nutrition important in feeding poultry? Number one reason is that since birds are raised in confinement, birds are dependent on humans for their nutrients. When we feed birds, we have to know their needs so that they can grow at an optimum level, that they can grow and produce at the optimum rate.

As I mentioned before, feed constitutes the major cost of raising poultry. Over 70% of the cost of raising poultry is coming from feed. And, of course, nutrition is important because reducing feed cost means reducing cost of raising birds at the same time it will bring profit to the producer.

Health of the birds is a very important issue. Nutrients have very important role in maintaining health. Nutrients have an important role in maintaining the immune system to work at a certain level. Nutrients have very important role so that certain metabolic diseases could be minimized. Nutrients have an important role in minimizing deficiency, so diet, optimum diet is very important. Most of the nutrient requirements for poultry is very well established. The reason being, chick or poultry is a very good experimental model. Nutrients that can minimize deficiency symptoms has been very well established in poultry because some of the really earlier studies on nutrition has been carried out on poultry. At present, we need more research on nutrients that can enhance the immune competence of the bird. We need to know more about nutrients that can minimize metabolic diseases such as ascites, leg weakness, sudden death. All these, costing millions of dollars to the U.S. poultry industry.

Why is nutrition important? We have to be concerned about the products we are producing. As I mentioned before, poultry is raised for eggs or meat. Quality and yield of the final product is very important.

Nutrients can promote quality of the product. Specialty products are gaining very much importance to consumers these days. Specialty products containing a specific nutrient that can enhance human health. For example, fatty acids such as Omega-3 fatty acids, other minor nutrients like vitamins, for example, vitamin E. Products containing these nutrients are gaining more value. Shell quality is an important issue in chicken eggs. The cost associated with shell problems, shell leakage and breakage cause lots of economic problems to poultry producers. Shell and albumen quality. We need to have proper nutrients in the bird diets to produce high quality shell and high quality egg components like yolk and albumen.

Yield of the product or the portion is gaining more and more importance in poultry nutrition. The reason being, more chickens are being sold as further processed or cut up chicken parts. Go to the supermarkets, you see more poultry being sold as nuggets, as fillets or as cut up portions like chicken thigh meat, boneless chicken breast meat. Leaner carcass is getting more importance, especially for the processed products. And also, leaner carcass is getting more premium price. At the same time, leaner carcass means less wastage, so nutrients are very important in maximizing the quality and maximizing the lean of the final product. We are not feeding poultry just to maintain health, we have different goals, we have different objectives to meet.

Where do we get all this information? Sources of information on feeding poultry. National Research Council - Nutrient Requirements of Poultry is the number one place where we can get the requirement, the different requirements of poultry published. The recent one is published in 1994. Other sources of information include United States and Canadian Tables of Feed Composition, Feedstuffs Annual Reference Issue. All these are good sources where we can get very recent information about the nutrient requirements of different classes of poultry.

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