As soon as your chicks complete their grower diet, they must transition to finisher feed, which contains higher-protein ingredients that will speed their way to reaching market weight faster.
This study sought to assess the impact of including DDGS, CGM, and SFM as partial alternative protein sources in finisher diets of Cobb 500 broilers for live performance evaluation and carcass attributes analysis.
Contents
Protein
Protein content of finisher chicken feed is vital to ensure its healthy and rapid development in birds destined for slaughter. A broiler finisher diet should feature high protein specification with an optimal calcium-to-phosphorus ratio to support reaching market weight goals in these birds.
Alternative proteins including SFM, CGM and DDGS may be used to replace SBM for sustainable production of broilers during their finisher phase (day 35-35). Our research demonstrated that incorporation of this combination into diets with various levels of CP did not negatively affect growth performance.
Grower feed is a complete, balanced ration designed for broilers from day 23-25 and turkeys beginning week 12 of their development cycle. It contains more energy than starter food to help the birds develop optimal condition for competitions; up to 22% protein may be present but this won’t provide adequate sustenance over an entire show season.
Fat
Finisher feed is the last diet given to broilers before sale and provides high levels of energy and protein for their natural activities.
This diet is also designed to promote muscle development and maximize show chicken performance, and should be fed to broiler chickens that are nearing slaughter age in order to help them reach their weight goals more quickly.
Research team have discovered that using alternative protein sources (feed ingredients) in broiler finisher diet can greatly enhance economic efficiency of broilers, by decreasing feed cost and increasing their metabolizable energy content of diet. Furthermore, it’s crucial that feed contains adequate amounts of protein to keep birds strong and healthy; in addition to selenium and vitamin E protection against disease.
Minerals
Finisher feed contains higher concentrations of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients than starter or layer feed. Its purpose is to assist broilers in reaching market weight more rapidly by offering increased protein and reduced levels of fat than with traditional starter feed.
Combining DDGS, CGM, and SFM as alternative proteins (APS) replacements for SBM in commercial broiler finisher diets with different crude protein levels (21%, 20% and 19%) can provide sustainable poultry production by requiring less SBM supplementation; however, for economic substitution of these sources within poultry feed formulations.
This complete ration for turkeys and broilers has been specifically developed to meet their nutritional requirements from day 36 until they reach their target market weight. Packed with vitamins and minerals in an easy-to-eat crumble format, it allows your bird to consume as part of their everyday diet.
Vitamins
Protein is often the most expensive nutrient in poultry diets, making separate rations necessary for starters, growers and finishers – although this might not always be cost-effective or feasible for small-scale producers who cannot afford separate feeding regimens at each stage of growth.
Vitamin premixes can be costly and unnecessary in poultry feed, since birds have access to vitamins from their diet. Fat-soluble vitamins (A and D) may be stored by birds for up to 15 days as storage for energy use; alfalfa can provide significant amounts of Vitamin A while sunflower seeds offer Vitamin D; while floor-raised broilers can access Vitamin B12 via their feces.
Skinner and Maiorka demonstrated that withdrawing vitamin premix from broiler finisher diets did not significantly decrease performance, immunity or characteristics of leg bones or meat lipid oxidation; thus making it feasible to decrease or remove this costly vitamin additive altogether from corn-soybean meal based diets for finisher broilers.
