Maximizing Birds Potential under Stressful Conditions

Many factors contribute to stress in animals. Among them are management or husbandry practices, nutrition and environment. In tropical countries, high environmental temperature is a major stressor especially to poultry. In general, the ideal temperature for broilers to obtain an optimum body weight is around 10-22 ºC, while in layers a temperature range from 10-30 ºC is required for optimum egg production.  Above this ideal temperature, chicken performances will response negatively.

However, there are ways to control or alleviate effects of heat stress to chickens and one of this is by imposing proper nutrition and feeding in the farm.

Depressing the feed intake is one of the main causes of poor performance at high temperature. Adjusting the feeding practices such as “wet- mash feeding”, using pellet or crumble, choice feeding of calcium source and frequent feeding can be able to help in increasing feed consumption. Moreover, manipulating the nutrient status of feeds can also helps to reduce the effect of heat stress to poultry chickens. You can achieve this through supplementation of considerable amount of fats in the diet, which can enhance birds’ consumption. A diet with low protein but with a balance of limiting essential amino acids is more beneficial during hot period than a diet containing high protein. Supplementing with additional electrolytes prevent alkalosis and drop in feed intake that is caused by heat stress. In addition, vitamins supplementation may help to improved bird performance at high temperature. Vitamin A is poorly absorbed at high temperature whereas Vitamin E boosts animal resistance and protecting cell membrane while B vitamins boost feed intake and improve nutrient metabolism. All this adjustment of nutrients needed by the chicken is of great significant during hot period.

Zagro being committed in providing solution to the needs of farm animals, innovated range of products that can help the animals counter the effects of stress. With the help of these products, birds can maximize their performance even under stress conditions. These products include Zagrosol AD3E, Zagrosol Aminogen, Zagrosol Minpro, Amilyte and Nilstress.

Zagrosol product lines are nutrient supplements via drinking water in liquid form. These oral liquids are innovatively manufactured in such a way that the bio-available nutrients like vitamin oils are completely miscible in animals’ drinking water even without further mixing needed. The Zagrosol AD3E contains significant amount of fat soluble vitamins which can improve reproductive performance, improve fertility, hatchability and bone formation of broiler breeders. Zagrosol Aminogen is a blended liquid form of concentrated multivitamins and amino acids which is a good supplement in improving uniform growth of flocks, weight gain and feed conversion ratio especially in broilers. Zagrosol Minpro on the other hand is an oral liquid supplement containing dietary trace and macro minerals and amino acids. It can help improve reproductive performance such as egg shell quality, hatchability, and maintain bone health.

For farms that prefer using powder forms, Amilyte and Nilstress can be the option. These powder supplements are highly soluble in water and won’t just settle down on the drinkers. Amilyte contains the essential nutrients vitamins, electrolytes and amino acids. It is a good fluid therapy to replenish nutrients lost due to stress and avoid further weight loss. Nilstress is a specially formulated anti-heat stress water soluble supplement with exceptional solubility. It contains powerful combinations of a well balanced key vitamins and electrolytes needed especially at extreme temperature. At times of stress, Amilyte and Nilstress improve the birds’ state of hydration and get them back on feed.

Chickens will always tend to suffer from stress on each day of their lives, thus countering its effect will economically improve their productivity. With Zagro essential water supplements, birds’ potential can be maximized.