The Importance of Product Form Quality in Feed Additives

4 CRITICAL PARAMETERS TO BE CONSIDERED WHEN YOU CHOOSE A FEED ADDITIVE Feed Additives are essential ingredients of the feed to; * Meet the animals’ nutritional requirements (vitamins, minerals, amino acids etc.) * Increase the efficiency of the feed raw materials (enzymes (Phytase, NSP’ase, protease etc.) * Increase the bioavailability of the nutrients by balancing the intestinal environment (pre-probiotics, phytobiotics etc) * Increasing the animal performance by fighting against pathogens (antibiotics, organic acids (in feed and drinking water), phytobiotics (thymol, carvacrol etc), probiotics or combinations) * Protect animals and production performance from undesirable substances like mycotoxins (mycotoxin binders or endotoxin binders) * Enhance the nutrient quality of the final product (Omega 3 or Se enriched eggs etc) * Increase the attractiveness of the final product (Pigments for egg yolk or chicken skin or fish flesh colorization etc.) * Protect animals from oxidative stress (Additional Vitamin E, Se, Zn, phytobiotics or combinations) Although many of the feed additive supplier claims the efficacy based on the active ingredient, we know that product form quality and formulation are as critical as the active ingredient and we should consider the following parameters of the feed additive before we decide. 4 MAIN POINT TO LOOK INTO THE FEED ADDITIVE • STABILTY Many feed productions practices like pelleting apply high temperature and humidity to the feed and additives. Do you think your feed additive is stable enough to reach to intestinal tract at sufficient level to show expected activity? In some cases, like additional heating system (against pathogens like Salmonella) before conditioner in poultry or extrusion in fish feed or pet food production systems create more extreme situation. • BIOAVAILABILITY The feed additive might be stable enough to reach to the targeted place like intestinal tract, but it cannot be available to the targeted species. Several field problems have been reported due to less bioavailable vitamins or some other additives. • MIXABILITY Many cases feed additives should be added into the feed at very low inclusion rates ( For example biotin). So, they should be used as premix to provide higher inclusion rate to the feed in order to secure homogeneity. If the feed additive particle structure (size and distribution) is not properly designed for premix or feed, even stability and bioavailability are fine you will have uniformity problem due to nonhomogeneous distribution in the feed. • HANDLING If the additive has high dusting properties, some part of the product is lost during handling and dangerous for the operators (fatal risks due to breathing). Electrostatic properties cause loses of the product on the production lines and may create more severe problems like dust explosion. So, claiming that the active ingredient will work in the field based on the literature is not sufficient unless the mentioned parameters meet the specifications in addition to published in vivo trial results.