Transcription of Feed Strategy Chat with Mieke Zoon, global product specialist - minerals, ADM Animal Nutrition
Jackie Roembke, editor-in-chief, WATT Feed Brands and Feed Strategy: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Feed Strategy Chat. I’m your host, Jackie Roembke, editor-in-chief of WATT Feed Brands and Feed Strategy magazine.
This Feed Strategy Chat is brought to you by ADM Animal Nutrition.
ADM is “Developing Custom Solutions for your desired results!” The company focuses on contributing to and supporting the success of managing a complex operation. It leverages its broad portfolio of ingredients, extensive animal technical service, and application expertise to fine-tune the custom poultry nutrition solutions needed to support and optimize production.
Today we’re joined by Mieke Zoon, ADM’s global product specialist - minerals. She’s here today to talk about harnessing the potential of organic trace minerals to enhance sustainable poultry nutrition.
Hi, Mieke, how are you today?
Mieke Zoon, global product specialist, ADM Animal Nutrition: Hello, fine. Thank you for having me.
Roembke: We're so happy to have you. Well, let's get right into it. What role do trace minerals play in the nutritional requirements of poultry? And why are they considered essential for optimal poultry health and well-being?
Zoon: Trace minerals are really considered essential as they are required for many metabolic processes. For example, hemoglobin formation or cellular energy tissue formation are really fundamental processes for any organism, but also protein and carbohydrate metabolism. The oxidative activity of trace minerals, as well as a functional properties, really ensure not only performance of any animals, including poultry, but also their immunity, reproduction and final product quality.
This has been shown in many review articles across livestock aquatic species, but also pets, horses and even humans. So this is really across all species.
Roembke: Why would a producer choose organic trace minerals versus inorganic?
The first and very short answer is to ensure to fulfill trace mineral requirements in all situations, as failing to do so will impact all aspects of animal production, even before showing deficiency signs. Organic trace minerals are more bioavailable to the animal due to their ability to reduce negative interactions with other nutrients, which is mainly competition between nutrients for absorption, but also the formation of non-digestible complexes. Supplementing more inorganic trace minerals, which is the traditional way to try to fulfill requirements, is therefore not the solution. It only creates more competition.
Inorganic trace minerals dissociate as soon as they are dissolved, while organic trace minerals are stable in the digestive tract of the animal and depending on the stability of their bond. Free metal ions are very reactive, they can bind to many different molecules, but naturally, proteins, amino acids, are their stabilizer to transport them safely within the organism.
For example, we provide a product based on a single legend, the smallest amino acid glycine. I like to refer to it as a loyal friend as it provides a very stable bond. We know exactly the chemical structure of this and the stability of this bond that we are offering with this range of products be tracks and to see, together with a high product quality that we are offer, we're sure to offer constant added value to our customers.
Roembke: Very good. Thank you for that information. How can organic trace minerals support a reduced environmental impact of poultry production?
Zoon: There is a lot of pressure — not only from authorities, but also customers and society in general — to push for more efficient animal production. And this is leading to a term we have been hearing a lot lately in the industry, which is called precision feeding, but still it includes a lot. In general, it's more efficient to use any limited resources. If you have a more efficient source of any essential nutrient, like the trace minerals, this is beneficial to improve the use of these limited resources. This is especially due to reduction of safety margins. So reducing excretion of trace minerals, it's really to limit the impact on both the environment, like soil and water quality. But also the development of antimicrobial resistance has been really a topic that is important in several regions, especially when there's high concentration of animal production.
In several trials say we have seen the ability of customers to maintain or even still improve performance of their animals, while reducing the supplementation of trace minerals when they use our source of organic trace minerals.
Roembke: Thank you so much. If you'd like more information about organic trace minerals and ADM's product offerings, please visit www.adm.com/animalnutrition.
Thank you so much, Mieke, and thanks to you for tuning in.
