New edition of All About Feed now online

Insect meal: Good for birds and eggs

The black soldier fly larvae (BSFL), could be an ideal protein-rich alternative for soy. Several studies have been undertaken to determine whether BSFL is suitable as a poultry feed ingredient. In conclusion, it could be stated that dietary inclusion of defatted BSFL meal of 10% to 16% as soy replacement does not negatively affect the live weight and daily food intake of mail broiler chickens. For egg production, the dietary inclusion of 7.5% defatted BSFL resulted in more uniform eggs with darker yolk that are more resistant.

The full article can be read on page 8.

Zero zinc summit: How to replace ZnO?

The Zero Zinc Summit, held in Copenhagen in June, had one goal – to figure out how to get piglets through weaning without using antibiotics or pharmacological levels of zinc oxide. At the event, several experts discussed the problem. All in all, the time had come to zoom in on each individual factor determining a healthy gut for just-weaned piglets. If antimicrobials and zinc oxide were used, many problems didn’t exist and individual factors for a healthy gut were not observed. The question is, what improvements can and should be made?

The full article can be read on page 12.

Microalgae: A suitable protein for cows

Recent studies conducted by the University of Helsinki have proven that microalgae can be used as protein feeds for dairy cows. Four feeding experiments were conducted to investigate the impact of different protein feeds. Microalgae seemed to be very well suited to substitute grain legumes, soya bean and faba bean in dairy cow diets. Nevertheless, the large-scale feed utilisation of microalga is still hindered by high production costs.

The full article can be read on page 14.

It was shown that microalgae can be used as a protein source for lactating dairy cows. Photo: Ronald Hissink