Silvafeed® Nutri P Diet Supplementation Impact on Laying Hens Productive Performance

Commercial laying hens health and production activity are continuously threatened, intensive breeding is becoming the most followed approach for many different type and size of companies. Therefore there is world-widespread agreement on nutrition key importance, since finding the right feed blend and measuring its performance is what really makes the difference for both the animal productivity and wellbeing. 

Silvateam has launched Silvafeed® Nutri P, a highly standardised blend of tannins from different botanical sources, to answer this call many years ago, receiving many positive feedbacks both from several prestigious research institutes and from commercial farm experience.

These positive results mainly regard improvements in poultry FCR, intestinal health and productive performance The Company keeps its R&D focused on assessing the tannin use within poultry management in different conditions and regions. Among the various requirements of the ever demanding animal nutrition sector was a study specifically targeted at laying hens.

The trial was a 2 years assessment (2015 and 2016), carried out in Torreón (Mexico), on the productive response to the addition of Silvafeed® Nutri P. 120,000 laying hens were divided in 2 groups: 60,000 following conventional breeding and the other 60,000 having an integration of 0,75 kg Silvafeed® Nutri P each feed ton.

The analysis target regarded the measurement of various parameters referring to two basic aspects: protection against intestinal lesions and production performance.

Necropsy was performed on a small subset of animals at the end of the trial period, in order to compare the condition of the intestinal mucosa between Silvafeed® Nutri P treated animals and control group. Presenting here below a graphical illustration of the final results.   

Silvafeed® Nutri P group presents fewer duodenum lesions than control group, both in terms of number and severity (Figure 2). The effect on Ileum is even better, since 100% of the lesions regarding hens treated with Silvafeed® Nutri P are not relevant - score 0 (Figure 3).

From an egg productivity point of view, various parameters were assessed during the period under analysis.

The below chart highlights the most meaningful differences in the Silvafeed® Nutri P treated animals performance, using the control group as a benchmark. The numbers are calculated as an average between 2015 and 2016.

Feed efficacy improves with the addition of Silvafeed® Nutri P. At the same time eggs production increases in number and weight (Figure 4).

The percentage of dirty and broken eggs is another parameter which slightly decreases in the treatment group, therefore stressing a qualitative improvement.

The results obtained in two consecutive years clearly follow the same trend in terms of production numbers: increase in conversion efficiency and in the number of eggs per hen under commercial production condition, suggesting that the inclusion of Silvafeed® Nutri P fosters a productive performance improvement in laying hens.

Several factors influence these positive results, most of which are strictly linked to Silvafeed® tannins benefits such as antioxidant, antibacterial and prebiotic activity.