February 2,2012

Hello MPGA Members,

There is a free service offered by Backyard Poultry Magazine.   It might be an effective way to learn more about poultry health in general. To sign up for the chicken health tips go to this link,  The red button to sign up is on the

upper right side of the homepage.

http://www.backyardpoultrymag.com/ 

Also notice the events for this month, the first is a webinar on Feb. 9th.  Look at Events section below!!

•News

Research: Chicken's resilience begins in the egg

05 Jan 2012 

Chickens are more resistant to infection if they are hatched at the right temperature. Feeding them straight after hatching also strengthens theirresilience at a later stage, concluded Wageningen UR PhD researcher Irene Walstra.

Walstra looked for ways of increasing the adaptive capacity of laying hens, so as to enable them to respond to pathogens more effectively. She hatched eggs at the optimal eggshell temperature of 37.8 degrees Celsius, after which the chicks had immediate access to food and water. They were then kept in a free-range barn with a dust bath for seven weeks. Another batch of eggs was hatched at temperatures of between 36.7 and 38.9, did not get immediate access to food and drink, and was kept in a cage. These conditions are common in the poultry sector. When the chicks were exposed to an intestinal parasite at the age of 53

days, the chicks in the first group were affected much less severely. “All the chicks fell ill, but the first group lost less weight than the second group”, says Walstra. Poultry farmers obtain more resilient laying hens if more care is taken at the hatchery over the temperature in the hatching machine and the living conditions for the young chicks, concluded Walstra. It can be difficult to make the second improvement because standard hatcheries do not have space for chicks to free-range before they are delivered to the poultry farmers. Walstra calls her experimental research a first step towards an alternative method of improving animal health without using drugs. She does add that the resistance of the

laying hens is also influenced by the conditions in the barn, the virulence of the pathogens concerned and the poultry farmer's management.

Source: Wageningen University

http://www.worldpoultry.net/news/research-chickens-resilience-begins-in-the-egg-9835.html

Study suggests poultry is healthier meat than beef

13 Jan 2012 

Not all protein is equal and eating lots of red meat raises the risk of having a stroke while poultry lowers it, according to results from a US study.

"The main message from this paper is that the type of protein or the protein package is really important for the risk of stroke," Frank Hu at the Harvard School of Public Health said of the study, which was published in the journal Stroke. "We have to consider protein in the context of the foods." To see what influence different types of dietary protein had on the risk of stroke, the researchers divided up a selection of people in the study based on how much red meat,poultry, fish, dairy and other sources of protein they typically ate each day. Men who ate more than two servings of red meat each day, which was at the high end of the

meat eaters, had a 28 percent increased risk of stroke compared to men who on average had a third of a serving of red meat each day, the low end of the meat eaters. Women who ate nearly two servings of red meat a day had a 19% higher risk of stroke than women who ate less than half a serving each day.

Swapping in one serving of poultry lowered stroke risk by 27%, a serving of nuts or fish was linked to a 17% drop, and a serving of dairy dropped the risk by 10 to 11%. People who ate the most chicken or turkey each day, about a half serving for women and three-quarters of a serving for men, had a 13% reduced risk of stroke compared with those who ate barely more than a serving a day. Researchers did not prove that beef is to blame for the increased number of strokes, but Adam Bernstein, lead author of the study, said it could be that the fat and iron in red meat play a role. An earlier study led by Susanna Larsson at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, also found that eating red meat had a link to the risk of stroke. "I do not think that poultry has been considered as a protein source that might lower the risk of stroke. This is new," said Larsson.

Source: Reuters

US: National Chicken council unveils new look website

16 Jan 2012 

The National Chicken Council (NCC) has unveiled a redesigned website at

www.nationalchickencouncil.com to improve the functionality and visual representation of the organization. The redesigned site offers a new, aesthetic look and a wider range of resources and information available to the public, members of the media, industry representatives and elected officials. Improved navigation allows users easier access to NCC’s online content,such as consumer research, industry data, policies, positions and NCC news. “As the primary source of information about the US broiler industry, I am pleased to introduce this much enriched feature of the council,” said NCC President Mike Brown. “Our

goals were to enhance NCC’s online representation, create a better vehicle to promote the industry, and make the content more relevant and true to the mission of the organization. I think the new website achieves these goals.”

New additions to the site include links to NCC’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/

Better pellet quality improves broiler performance

18 Jul 2011 

Researchers in New Zealand demonstrated that it is possible to manufacture high quality pellets at low conditioning temperature through the addition of a pellet binder and/or moisture to mash diets.  Feeding pelleted diets per se is

not enough to ensure optimum performance of broilers. The quality of pellets must also be taken into account. While assessing the cost-effectiveness

of investment in high pellet quality, consideration should also be given to whether or not the strategies employed to improve pellet quality may have a negative effect on nutrient availability. More specifically, conditions of high

heat and moisture may induce non-favorable reactions that lead to reduced nutrient a Palmerston North, New Zealand has shown that, while steam conditioning of mash diets at 60ºC improved growth response, increasing conditioning temperatures above 60ºC had negative effects on nutrient utilization and performance of broiler starters. On the other hand, in pelleted diets, conditioning at 90ºC improved pellet quality and the better quality resulted in the restoration of deteriorated performance.

Based on these results, the researchers evaluated possible ways of simultaneously maintaining high nutrient utilization as well as achieving a reasonable pellet quality without using high conditioning temperatures.

Broiler trial

To check their hypothesis wheat-soy based broiler starter and finisher diets were formulated to meet the Ross 308 strain recommendations for major nutrients. The experimental treatments were as described in Table 1. Conditioning temperature was altered by adjusting the steam flow rate and measured at the outlet of the conditioner. Conditioning time of the mash was 30 seconds. The pellet binder and moisture were added as a top- dressing to the basal mash diet in a single-screw paddle mixer.

All diets were pelleted using a semi laboratory scale pellet mill (180 kg/h) and equipped with a die ring (3-mm hole and 35-mm thickness). Each of the six dietary treatments was offered ad libitum to six replicate cages (eight birds per cage). Cages were used to better derive performance data. Pellet durability index (PDI) and pellet hardness were determined using a Holmen Pellet Tester and a Stable Micro Systems Texture Analyzer, respectively. The cage means were

used to derive performance data.

Trial results

During the starter period (d 1 to 21), birds fed diets conditioned at 60ºC, regardless of pellet binder or/and moisture addition, gained more weight than those fed diets conditioned at90ºC with or without pellet binder (Table 2). Addition of pellet binder or/and moisture to the diets conditioned at 60ºC had no effect on weight gain, feed intake and feed per gain. Pellet binder addition to the diet conditioned at 90ºC increased weight gain and feed intake and improved feed per gain compared to the diet conditioned at 90ºC with no pellet binder.

Birds fed the diet conditioned at 90ºC without pellet binder had similar feed per gain to those fed the diet conditioned at 60ºC without pellet binder or moisture addition, but higher than those fed other dietary treatments. Over the whole trial period (d 1 to 35, Table 2), birds fed the diet conditioned at 90ºC with no pellet binder addition (T5) had lower weight gains than those fed other dietary treatments. The dietary treatments had no effect on feed per gain.

High T, better PDI

In starter diets, pellet durability of the diet conditioned at 60ºC with pellet binder and moisture addition (T4) was similar to the diet conditioned at 90ºC with pellet binder (T6), but higher than other dietary treatments (Table 3). Among starter diets conditioned at 60ºC, moisture addition, individually or in combination with pellet binder, had higher PDI and pellet hardness compared to diets with and without pellet binder addition. Starter diets conditioned at 90ºC with pellet binder had the highest pellet hardness followed by the diet conditioned at 90ºC without pellet binder.

Among finisher diets, the diets conditioned at 90ºC, regardless of pellet binder addition, had higher PDI and pellet hardness than all the diets conditioned at 60ºC (Table 3). In finisher diets conditioned at 60ºC, moisture addition increased the PDI compared to the diets without or with pellet binder. Among finisher diets conditioned at 60ºC, moisture addition, individually or in combination with pellet binder, increased the pellet hardness compared to the diet without pellet binder and moisture.

High T, lower energy level

All starter diets conditioned at 60ºC were determined with similar apparent metabolisable energy (AME) values. However, conditioning at 90ºC, regardless of pellet binder addition, resulted in lower AME compared to diets conditioned at 60ºC (Table 3). Apparent ideal digestibility of N and starch in finisher diets was unaffected by dietary treatments (Table 3).

Based on these observations, it may be concluded that the effectiveness of high pellet quality in improving broiler growth responses depends on the effects of conditioning temperature on nutrient utilization of the diets. It seems that similar AME values of the diets conditioned at 60ºC did not leave any room for the higher pellet quality achieved by addition of pellet binder and moisture, individually or in combination, to improve the performance further.

It is plausible that pellet binder addition to the diet conditioned at 90ºC may have created pellets of high quality to offset lower AME values of diets conditioned at 90ºC and resulted in higher weight gain and feed intake and an improved FCR compared to the diet without pellet binder. The birds spent less energy in eating which compensates the lower energy in the pelleted feed.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the negative effects of higher conditioning temperature on weight gain, and to some extent feed intake, of broilers were not only limited to the starter period, but also can be seen over the whole trial period unless pellet quality improves. The current study also illustrates possibilities for high quality pellets to be manufactured by the addition of pellet binder or/and moisture to a mash diet without applying high conditioning temperatures.

Original article: Effects of a commercial pellet binder and moisture addition on pellet quality and the performance and nutrient utilization of broilers. M.R. Abdollahi, D.V.

Thomas, T.J. Wester, G. Ravindrai and V. Ravindrai, Institute of Food, Nutrition and Human

Health, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand, Adapted and edited from

Proceedings 22nd Annual Australian Poultry Science symposium.

Source: All About Feed, vol 2 nr 6, 2011

http://www.allaboutfeed.net/background/better-pellet-quality-improves-broiler-

performance-12602.html

•Upcoming Events

Poultry Troubleshooting Webinar 7:00 PM on Thursday, Feb. 9   

Extension Poultry Specialist, Dr. Jacquie Jacob from the University of Kentucky will be the lead teacher.  SARE is sponsoring this webinar for you, other ag service providers and poultry producers in New England.

 The webinar is designed for small-scale and mid-size poultry keepers to identify and correct common poultry problems.  The materials presented are suitable for farmers or backyard keepers. Preregistration is not necessary. The webinar can be found at: http://connect.maine.edu/smallscalepoultryproducers/ Simply click on the link or paste into your browser. You do not need to sign in, just enter as a guest with  your first name and the initial of  your last name, in case we need to follow up after the webinar.

The webinar is scheduled to start on February 9th at 7:00 pm eastern time and will last about 1 hour.

We encourage you to access the webinar link at least 10 minutes prior to start time. There will be a short questionnaire to determine your poultry interest. This course makes extensive use of streaming video, a high-speed internet connection will greatly enhance your experience.

To make sure your computer will work with Adobe Connect, click on this link:

http://na3cps.adobeconnect.com/common/help/en/support/meeting_test.htm Along with a speed test, it also verifies if Adobe Flash Player and the Adobe Connect Add-in are installed. Most people already have Flash installed, and the Connect Add-in is not necessary to participate.

These things will be checked when you connect to the meeting as well, but it would be a good idea to try the test link in advance so you will have time to install missingcomponents. If you check in 10 minutes prior to the webinar, this should be enough time to check your connections.

For support with connectivity issues, contact UMaine Extension Network Manager, Tanner at tanner.kelleter@maine.edu or call him at 207-581-3871.

If you would like the link to the recorded session, please e-mail your request to

colleen.hoyt@maine.edu (please note Small Scale Poultry webinar in the subject line) following the session.

 For more information, please call UMaine Extension at 207-781-6099 <tel:207-781-6099>

 or email richard.brzozowski@maine.edu. 

UMaine Extension programs are open and accessible to all in accordance with program goals. To provide adequate time to respond to your request please provide as much notice as possible.

Interested parties can sign up on the project web site to be informed of any future poultry- related educational offerings (including this webinar).  Go to

http://umaine.edu/poultry/ and see side bar on the right "message to farmers".  At the bottom of that side bar is a link to sign up to be informed of future offerings.

Egg Producer School

9:00 AM to 3:00 PM, Saturday, March 24, 2012

Kennebec Valley Community College, Fairfield, Maine

$25.00 per person (lunch included)

With UCONN Extension Poultry Specialist, Dr. Michael Darre

and UMAINE Agriculture Extension Educator, Dr. Richard Brzozowski

This day-long school is designed for individuals who have (or plan to have) a

small-scale or mid-size egg production enterprise.    

Objective:  Participants will be equipped with information and skills to assist them in reaching & managing a profitable egg enterprise.

Topics to be presented:

o components of an economic egg operation (bird selection, feed, facilities,

labor, marketing, pest management, etc.)

o production cycle of the laying hen 

o models for small and mid-sized egg operations (from chick, from

pullets, 1 year of egg production, 2 lay of egg production - pros and

cons of each)

o appropriate technology for small to mid-sized egg operations

o reducing or eliminating common problems of egg operations

o food safety and egg quality

o regulations for selling eggs in Maine

o marketing options for local eggs

For more information, contact UMaine Extension at 1-800-287-1471 (207-781- 6099) or email colleen.hoyt@maine.edu

•Swap and Sell  

To have your add run below submit the information before the 10th of each month to the editor dianes@mofga.org or 785-5310

Hope to see you at the poultry school, it looks informative.

Happy Groundhog day!  Remember ½ your wood and feed should still be left!

Diane Schivera, Editor

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