Research and development into the viability of a one hundred per cent organic ration for organic table birds within a silvo-poultry system

Summary

The study was conducted on a commercial organic table bird enterprise to investigate the impact of feeding a one hundred per cent organic feed ration to organic table birds. Performance of birds on the one hundred per cent diet was compared with that on a commercially available eighty per cent organic feed ration (and after a change in regulation an eighty-five per cent organic ration). In the first section of the trial the performance of two different bird strains (ISA 257 and colourpac) was investigated during the summer season, and in the second section the per-formance of a ISA 257 strain was investigated during the winter season. Agronomic and welfare factors as well as production traits were considered. The first section of the trial revealed no overall health, growth or welfare concerns or increases in production costs when comparing the two rations. Some minor differ-ences were identified between the two strains of bird. The second section of the investigation is still on going, but there are early indications of a increase in cost and larger differential in performance for birds on the one hundred per cent ration, when compared to the spring/summer trial.