ISSUE FOCUS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE May 2024 65 But which other alternative ingredients can be used to minimize the feed costs for the producer? Nutrition plays a major role in the maintenance of the animal health through various possibilities. But are all equivalent in terms of cost and performances? Managing animal health is one of the greatest challenges to animal production. It is estimated that more than one in five animals are lost from disease each year, while many more incur the costs of sub-clinical infections (WOAH, found as OIE, 2015). Disease and sub-optimal health not only constrain animal well-being and the economic return for the producer, but further negate sustainability, where unhealthy animals carry a heavier environmental footprint. CONTRIBUTING TO ANIMAL RESILIENCE Making sure that both energy and nutrients are efficiently absorbed and used by the animal is the nutritionists’ main goal. Farm animals have an intense metabolism, making them more vulnerable to changes. Parameters such as environmental events, critical production periods or modification of the diet characteristics can affect animal performance. Those stressors/ challenges can concern all animal species with various consequences: • Early days of life up to weaning: The first days and weeks of an animal’s life are marked by heightened sensitivity to environmental factors, such as temperature, housing conditions, access to clean water and more. - Some species are more at risk when separated from their mother and transferred to a new facility due to the immaturity of the newborn’s immune system, as 70 to 80% of the immune cells are located in the gut. - Many animals are vulnerable to heat stress when air temperature and humidity rise for extended or unexpected periods, during periods of drought, and when air flow is lacking. • Feed transition: New formula is first recognized as a stranger by the organism, especially during the weaning, which means the first encounter between piglets and some raw materials. Consequently, animals have to adapt their enzymatic system in order to digest these new raw materials, which is an important physiological change. • External parameter: Vaccination, heat stress period. • Metabolism intensity at gestation, farrowing, calving, laying peak, lactation peak, and high average daily gain period are periods requiring high energetic needs. Although young animals are inherently more sensitive to fluctuations in their environment, certain environmental challenges can impact all animals, irrespec-
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