Higher organic standard impedes nutritional value

Leading UK poultry feed specialist, Humphrey Feeds, have implemented their organic diets to 95% whilst maintaining all the nutritional standards of their diets.

 

Director of Humphrey Feed, Martin Humphrey, said that “the challenge with this change to organic formulations has been to ensure that the essential amino acids, particularly lysine and methionine are of the correct quantity and ratio, and are of a quality to meet the nutrient and welfare requirements of the bird.

 

“For the unwary, the change to 95% organic can unbalance the diet, leading to an oversupply of non-limiting or non-essential amino acids which can cause hock burn, pododermatitis and certain behavioural abnormalities.

 

“We have used all our experience of making organic poultry diets to select raw materials to avoid these issues and ensure the continuity of expected nutritional and performance standards without compromise.”

 

Humphrey Feeds range of 66 organic poultry diets include core diets, as well as a wide range of specialist ‘management diets’ that aim to adjust certain issues, including eggs size, bird growth, feed intake or feeds for chicken recovering from disease. Diets are also formulated for the time of year, reflecting the different seasonal challenges.

 

“We strongly believe that fishmeal is an essential ingredient in any 95% diets, so have dropped the eight formulations that do not contain fishmeal from our range as those diets have become unbalanced and nutritionally inadequate.

 

“Currently the performance of our organic customers’ flocks matches that of our conventional free-range customers, and this should continue to be the case with our new range of 95% diets” concludes Martin Humphrey.