Feed & Additive Magazine Issue 4 May 2021

SPECIAL STORY FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE May 2021 35 About Kayla Wong In 2019, Kayla completed her master’s in ani- mal science at Massey University, New Zealand, researching in the area of meat science. Serves as the Technical Specialist in Manuka Biotech, a business unit of Singao based in Malaysia. Sin- gao is the pioneer in the field of fatty acid nutri- cine, she hopes of bringing the best technology to improve animal well-being and productivity. Before her role at Manuka Biotech, she was a dairy farm manager for a new farm of 500 cows. Working with a team of 25, they managed to improve milk yield, milk protein fat ratio, heat detection and reproductive performances of the cows. During her time at Massey University, she received a scholarship and successfully pub- lished and presented her research at the NZSAP* conference. *New Zealand Society of Animal Production in weaned piglets when they were supplemented with a combination of butyric acid derivatives and hydrolysable tannin and physical appearance scores have also improved. Although the faecal appearance was not significantly different from each other, it was noted that the faeces in pens that were supple- mented with the combination of butyric acid and hydrolysable tannin stayed more intact when care- takers hosed down the pens during cleaning. This further showed that supplementation of a combi- nation of butyric acid derivatives and hydrolysable tannin in weaned piglets was able to improve faecal score and reduce moisture in faeces. MANUKA BIOTECH’S PWD SOLUTION Although butyric acid derivatives and hydro- lysable tannin seems to be a promising solution for resolving diarrheal and wet dropping issues, both these components have individual challenges to be overcome before it can be easily incorporated in animal feed. Butyrate salts are known to have a pungent smell that makes it hard to work with and easily releases butyric acid when dissolved causing less butyric acid to be able to reach the hindgut. Hydrolysable tannin on the other hand, also has its own sets of challenges such as being easily oxidized and having a bitter taste that could negatively im- pact feed palatability. At Manuka Biotech, we are equipped with the ca- pability to produce a butyrate salt and hydrolysable tannin combination with our unique matrix-coating that overcomes the challenges of both raw materials. Our unique matrix-coating ensures slow release of tannin and butyric acid at the same time through- out the gastrointestinal tract to bring out synergistic effects of both components throughout the gastroin- testinal tract. References are available upon request.