SPECIAL STORY FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE February 2023 53 Egg producers strive to produce a nutritious, versatile, safe and economical food (eggs). In this sense, nutrition (represents more than 50% of the production costs of an egg) can contribute in controlling production costs by optimizing the use of alternative ingredients in search of balanced feed conversion and more than 500 eggs hen housed with top quality. Egg production depends on the balance between production costs and the value paid by the consumer. Throughout recent history, several factors have increased production costs, increasing the pressure on egg producers to remain competitive in the egg market. Traditionally, the most used feed ingredients are corn, soybean meal, wheat, and oats. However, the dispute between food and feed is becoming increasingly fierce and associated with the concern for reducing environmental impacts. Fortunately, genetic selection of laying hens has contributed a lot as the hens have been selected to adapt to the different types of chicken feed available to them. In different regions of the world, "alternative" ingredients such as sorghum, millet, triticale, sunflower meal, peanut meal, rice bran, palm meal, cottonseed meal, linseed meal, fish meal, etc. are available. More recently, the corn-based ethanol industry has generated DDG (Distillers dried grains); residues from the bakery industry have also been used (bread and cracker meal) and research continues on the use of insects (live or in the form of meal or oil) as feed for laying hens. In addition, research is being conducted with microalgae, legumes of the most varied types (such as field beans), and products that increase the use of phosphorus from ingredients of vegetable origin have also been developed. The use of alternative ingredients to control feed costs is possible, feasible, and necessary. Therefore, each new ingredient has different qualities to be used and limitations to be respected. It may seem laborious, but there are important points to be considered so that we can promote productivity with quality and controlled production costs. Below we have listed several points of attention that facilitate the use of alternative chicken feed ingredients. 1. Bromatological quality of the raw material: The quality of the raw material influences the final cost of the feed. For example, the same raw material, with the same price, but with different nutritional levels will result in a feed with a higher cost, CONTROLLING COSTS THROUGH THE USE OF ALTERNATIVE INGREDIENTS IN POULTRY DIETS Diogo T. Ito Global Layer Nutritionist Hendrix Genetics Layers
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