Organic Poultry Nutrition and Rations

Summary

The scope of the review is to consider recent sources of information relating to the feeding of organic laying hens, broilers and turkeys. In particular, it reviews all the research commissioned by Defra together with other UK and European work and collates the results of that work in the light of commercial experience, providing advisers with a summary of the key recommendations. The study focuses on determining the suitability and availability of organic ingredients and the ways in which farmers can make the best use of these.
Best practice i.e. the use of 100% organic ingredients should be at the forefront of all feed formulation. The main problem faced by producers is the sourcing of organic ingredients that provide adequate levels of essential amino acids (AA) such as methionine and lysine without introducing higher levels of anti-nutritional factors (ANF) into the diet. For these reasons many diets are formulated using the non-organic allowance i.e. 15% annual dry mater intake can be approved non-organic ingredients, permitted until 31st December 2007. After that date the level falls to 10% then 5% two years later and finally 100% organic from 1st January 2012.
Genotype, the birds’ ability to utilise naturally occurring ingredients and factors governing the use of range are reviewed.
The review indicates ways in which farmers can optimise performance taking into account the types of bird available, the feed that can be provided on the farm and the management of the range. There will be some consideration of the cost of feed and the ways in which this may change.