Addressing the hatchability issue with nutrition [VIDEO]

Find out how a solutions-based approach to hatchability concerns can help integrators remedy breeder, egg and chick quality challenges.

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Solutions-based approach, partnership help integrators evaluate and rectify breeder, egg and chick quality challenges

In recent years, the U.S. broiler egg layer productivity has faced several challenges, limiting the supply of quality chicks and taxing existing breeder stock.

Dr. Duarte Neves, a poultry nutritionist with Zinpro, joins the Chat to discuss the state of hatchability and to examine nutrition solutions for improved breeder performance and egg hatchability.

How to address the hatchability issue through nutrition Zinpro from WATT Global Media on Vimeo.

Transcription of Feed Strategy Chat with Dr. Duarte Neves, poultry nutritionist, Zinpro

Jackie Roembke, editor in chief, WATT Feed brands/Feed StrategyHello everyone and welcome to Feed Strategy Chat. I am your host, Jackie Roembke, editor in chief of WATT Feed brands and Feed Strategy magazine.

This edition of Feed Strategy Chat is brought to you by Zinpro. Zinpro’s proven nutrition solutions help producers improve productivity in breeders and broilers by enhancing hatchability, bird productivity, chick robustness and egg quality for optimized performance and return on investment. Zinpro offers industry leading trace minerals designed to not only meet the nutritional needs of birds but help them overcome production challenges associated with sub-optimal nutrition. You can learn more about the total solutions available only from Zinpro at Zinpro.com

Today, we’re talking to Dr. Duarte Neves, a poultry research nutritionist at Zinpro. He’s here to talk about the current hatchability issue and offer insights into the ways producers can address it.

Hi Dr. Neves, how are you today?

Dr. Duarte Neves, poultry nutritionist, Zinpro: Good. How are you doing, Jackie?

Roembke:  I’m doing well. Thank you very much. Thanks for being here. Well, let’s get right into it. Hatchability is a hot topic right now as it is a struggle across the board. What is leading to this and what are some of the downstream impacts that poor hatchability has on an operation?

Neves: Excellent question. There is a high demand for chicks right now in the markets; and there is a high demand for all the hens to lay more. Unless you placed younger hens last year to get more eggs this year, you’re going to require more eggs out of the older flocks. This will lead to less-than-optimal quality of eggs in the market. This will lead to the breakage of more eggs and a higher increase in bacterial load in these eggs.

With less quality eggs on the market, less chicks are going to come out of it, and all the cost that you put into those flocks is going to be divided across less chicks. The cost per chick is going to go up. This is what we’re seeing in the market.

Higher cost per chick, less chicks going onto the field, which means less meat will be produced overall. This is why it’s such a big deal right now.

Roembke: Great, thanks for that insight. How is Zinpro approaching this problem to help the market overcome the challenge?

Neves: The way we are looking at it is that we know there are a multitude of factors that are affecting hatchability, outside of just nutrition, management, the health of the flock — so many factors that can affect this, right? The way we look at it is we approach integrators in question, we look at it as in a manner of total solutions package, if you will, so we look at all the things that are happening and why what they have tried. What’s yielding the results of those solutions? We evaluate the egg quality, most of all, quite frankly, we assess the quality of the flocks as they are young, as they are as they age too, that we focus a lot on the egg overall.

We come in and we evaluate several different parameters. Using our Zinpro BlueBox (egg shell quality evaluation tool) is one of them. We bring our experts as well. And we evaluate the whole situation. By partnering with the integrator, we can provide solutions that try to improve all these issues that they are seeing all at once.

Roembke: What does Zinpro specifically recommend from a nutrition perspective to increase breeder performance?

Neves: Based on the challenges we discussed, ultimately Zinpro recommends a product containing zinc, manganese and copper in the form of Availa ZMC. Through extensive research, we have proven that Availa ZMC is able to improve breeder performance and the hatchability of set eggs and fertile eggs — so more chicks out of the same amount of eggs. We have improved the quality of those chicks, including a reduction in seven-day mortality.

All in all, this is a solution that we work to implement with the integrators that we partner with. To learn more about this, please connect with me or any of our experts.

Roembke: Very good. Thank you so much for those insights. If you would like more information about Zinpro and its solutions, please visit www.zinpro.com/species/poultry/breeders. Thanks again, Dr. Neves. And thanks to you for tuning in.

Neves: Thank you.

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