Natalie Morgan

Flock uniformity is crucial to increase the performance and profitability of commercial egg production (Corzo et.al, 2004). Obtaining flock uniformity in a free-range system may be challenging due to the variation in feeding and ranging behaviour of individual birds.The current study investigated the effect of body weight on initial range utilization and flock uniformity in two free-range laying f ...

Copper (Cu) is a vital element involved in cellular metabolism and enzyme systems. At levels greater than nutritional requirements, dietary Cu addition enhances growth performance as a growth promoter (Pesti and Bakalii, 1996). Copper dosing at levels up to 250 mg/kg feed has been shown to improve intestinal structure and function, and alter the intestinal microbiota profile (Di Giancamillo et al. ...

I. INTRODUCTIONThe quality of poultry feed and litter are important for maintaining and improving poultry production. Poultry feed (raw materials and formulated diet) is highly variable and large safety margins are needed to buffer the nutritional variability in feed ingredients when formulating diets (Moss et al., 2021). Feed ingredients delivered to feed mills are not comprehensively analysed us ...

Hydroxychloride trace minerals (HTM) have covalent bonds and thus are less reactive both in the feed and in the digestive tract compared to inorganic trace minerals, which contain ionic bonds (ITM) such as sulphate forms. Therefore, HTM may have higher bioavailability than ITM.This study aimed to evaluate the effects of replacing sulphate forms of zinc (ZnSO4), manganese (MnSO4) and copper (CuSO4) ...

I. IntroductionTypical Australian broiler diets contain 2.5-3.0 g/kg phytate-P or roughly 10.0 g/kg phytate; therefore, phytase is included into every Australian broiler diet. As phytase is capable of increasing the availability of phosphorus, calcium, sodium, amino acids and energy content of diets, these nutrients may be decreased in the feed formulations as ‘matrix values’ without a ...

There is increasing evidence that supplementing small amounts of prebiotic xylo-oligosaccharides (XOS) into poultry diets has positive effects on bird performance and gastrointestinal health. Soluble XOS that reach the caeca intact are utilised by beneficial bacteria, inducing positive effects such as increased production of short chain fatty acids (Aachary & Prapulla, 2011). Commercial endo-x ...

Wheat has traditionally been the target substrate ingredient for xylanase application, due to its high arabinoxylan content causing increased digesta viscosity. However, numerous studies have highlighted the benefits of supplementing non-viscous corn-based diets with xylanase, on broiler performance and energy, protein and dry matter digestibility (Rabello et al., 2021; Stefanello et al., 2016). T ...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of feeding xylo-oligosaccharides (XOS), xylanase (XYL) and fermentable fibre, in the form of wheat bran (WB), on egg quality. It is theorised that WB stimulates and trains the microbiota in the hindgut to hydrolyse and ferment dietary xylan, and XOS and XYL may further upregulate xylan fermentation pathways, resulting in improved nutrient utilisatio ...

A study was conducted to investigate whether the functional oligosaccharides released in situ as a consequence of fibre-degrading enzyme application ameliorate the severity of necrotic enteritis (NE) in broilers offered wheat- or maize-based diets. Day-old Cobb 500 mixed-sex broilers (n = 1536) were assigned to a 2 × 2 × 4 factorial arrangement of treatments, with six replicates per tr ...

Despite extensive research presenting both the benefits and detriments of soluble non-starch polysaccharides (sNSP) in poultry diets, its concentration and composition in feed ingredients is not commonly considered during commercial feed formulation. Consequently, a study was conducted in which birds were fed commercial-type diets formulated to Cobb recommendations (barley, corn, sorghum or wheat- ...