ISSUE FOCUS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE October 2025 41 The livestock industry continues to face mounting pressure to optimize animal performance while maintaining health and welfare standards. Among the various factors influencing livestock productivity, feed quality has emerged as a fundamental determinant of gut health, with far-reaching implications for animal performance, disease resistance and economic viability. UNDERSTANDING THE FEED QUALITY-GUT HEALTH CONNECTION The relationship between feed quality and gut health operates through multiple interconnected pathways. Physical feed characteristics, microbial load and processing parameters all influence the gastrointestinal environment, affecting everything from nutrient absorption to immune function. In poultry, this relationship has been extensively studied due to the species' economic importance and the relative ease of conducting controlled experiments. Gut health encompasses several measurable parameters, including intestinal development and morphology (villus height and crypt depth ratios), lesion scores, microbiome composition and functional indicators such as nutrient digestibility. These parameters serve as biomarkers for overall intestinal integrity and function, providing researchers and producers with quantifiable metrics to assess feed quality impacts. PHYSICAL FEED STRUCTURE AND INTESTINAL PERFORMANCE One of the most significant discoveries in recent poultry research relates to pellet durability and its impact on bird performance. The Pellet Durability Index (PDI) and fines percentage have emerged as critical quality metrics that directly influence feed conversion ratios (FCR) and average daily gain (ADG) in broilers. Research demonstrates that pellets with high durability consistently outperform lower-quality alternatives and mash feeds. In controlled studies, high-quality pellets produced FCR values of 1.85-1.88, compared to 2.02 for mash diets – representing improvements of 8-9% in feed efficiency (Chewning, Stark, & Brake, 2012). This improvement translates to substantial economic benefits when scaled across commercial operations. “The relationship between feed quality and gut health in livestock operates through multiple interconnected pathways. Physical feed characteristics, microbial load and processing parameters all influence the gastrointestinal environment, affecting everything from nutrient absorption to immune function.” THE CRITICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FEED QUALITY AND GUT HEALTH IN LIVESTOCK Dr. Antonio Ricci Technical Director EMEA Anitox
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTUxNjkxNQ==