Interview: Digital solution for sustainable egg production

 

Evonik has launched a digital access to EGGcellence.  AMINOHen® is an egg industry nutrition software developed by Evonik to achieve Sustainable egg production and easily individualized a feeding program for layers.

We chat about  AMINOHen® with Carlos de la Cruz, Senior Manager Technical Consultancy at Evonik Animnal Nutrition. He is a veterinarian specialized in poultry nutrition, working for Evonik Animal Nutrition for 14 years with former experience in the egg industry.

 

Nowadays there is no livestock industry under more attacks than the egg industry, beginning with raw materials availability and price increase, or layer disease outbreaks,  follow by retailers, pressure to meet egg consumer demands in regard to animal welfare (debeaking ban, cage-free production, day-old male layer chick culling, etc), on top food habit changes driven by plant protein products and egg cholesterol myth still present today. Among all challenges, there is a highly productive layer that needs to be understood correctly to fulfill their nutrient demands, regardless of production housing system, egg color, or genetic line layer to obtain the maximum performance and the highest revenues for the egg producer.

Balanced diet is an essential part of sustainable egg production. In-depth knowledge of nutrient requirements is the key to effective diet design, yet gaining a full and current overview can be challenging, as it usually involves reviewing multiple sources, such as country-specific animal nutritional guidelines, genetic management guides, animal nutrition textbooks, etc. In addition, a great deal of factual information sources are not updated regularly, especially in the context of modern genetic layer development. Nutritional requirements available are often presented in fixed feeding programs in the form of a table without considering the impact of different production environments, bird age, housing system, nutrient density, feed intake, or biological performance target.

AMINOHen® is a digital solution that combines the most up-to-date nutritional concepts for laying hens in production from poultry institutions, Evonik Animal Research and commercial feeding practices around the world. It presents nutrient requirements for laying hens under different production conditions in dynamic and flexible week-long feeding programs, adapted to the needs of modern genetically advanced layers.

AMINOHen® provides nutritional recommendations for laying hens under different production conditions in flexible week-phase feeding programs considering feed intake.

With AMINOHen® the user can create the most accurate feeding programs possible for your layers, because AMINOHen® works directly with Key Performance Indicators of egg production, which can come directly from your own production data or the uploaded performance data of one of 36 commercial layer breeds. You can also retrieve production data from Layinsight-Porphyrio® for precise nutritional recommendations.

AMINOHen® optimizes feeds based on nutrient density and feed cost and helps you determine the most cost-effective feeding program for layers in production based on nutrient density.

AMINOHen® provides support for feed manufacturing planning by providing an estimation of feed intake per bird per feeding phase, optimizing your feed planning program, reducing costs, and improving overall bird management.