HWN Suggests

Consumer perception of feed additives in animal feed

Feed additives are designed, according to regulatory definition, to improve the quality of feed and the quality of food from animal origin. The negative image of feed additives in the consumer’s perception is partly due to a lack of understanding of their function and benefits in animal nutrition and not knowing the diversity in feed additives that is available. Otherwise, the awareness that most of the feed additives are designed to reduce the concerns regarding livestock production would be far greater among consumers and reduce their reservations and skepticism about feed additives.

read full article

Featured

 Feed Additives

Animal feed additives are a broad term used in a variety of nutritional products produced for livestock. Livestock farmers use a combination of nutrients to safely provide complete improvements to the health and functioning of their animals. Medicines or supplements that prevent or treat disease are regarded as drugs. They are highly regulated in animal feed products by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or similar institutions in other countries. Examples of the non-drug additives include yucca, aloe vera, yeast or yeast extract, kelp, glycosaminoglycans, probiotics, omega-3 fatty acids, bentonite, mineral oil, colour, and ethoxyquin, among others.

 Importance of animal feed additives

Animal feed additives is a broad term applied to the wide range of diet-enhancing products that are manufactured for livestock. Feed additives are available for various purposes: some are designed to deliver specific nutrients that are missing from the animals’ diet; others are targeted to strengthen their immune system and help them fight disease. To elaborate, there are supply feed additives for overcoming deficiencies, improving output, resolving digestive issues, improving appetite, strengthening pregnant animals, and enhancing weak bone structure.

 Misinformation is the enemy of animal feed additives

Once upon a time, antibiotics reigned. They were inexpensive and efficient. Everybody used them, and animals thrived. Then someone read a report about antibiotic resistance in humans and looked up antibiotic usage. It did not take long to decide animals were consuming the most antibiotics, so they should be held responsible for resistance. This is true, and it would have worked if similar measures were taken to control antibiotic usage in humans. As it stands, resistance in humans has not been affected, whereas animals have been deprived of a very useful tool that kept them healthy and growing in commercial conditions.

Articles of Interest

Arsenic-it's in animal feed too

In 2006, IATP’s report Playing Chicken: Avoiding Arsenic in Your Meat estimated that more than 70 percent of all U.S. chickens raised for meat are fed arsenic. That report found detectable levels of arsenic in many name brand poultry products from supermarkets and fast food restaurants.

Different types of natural feed additives and their specific uses in animal nutrition

Natural feed additives are derived from natural sources such as plants, minerals, and microorganisms. They are used in animal nutrition to improve the performance, health, and welfare of animals.

Enzymes in Animal Feed: Benefits And Future Uses

When feed enzymes were first used more than a decade ago, their acceptance was limited to phytase applications for reduced phosphorus excretion. Although feed enzymes have been utilised for many years, we have only scratched the surface as research on feed enzyme technology.

Feed additives: The next frontier of the dairy industry’s sustainability journey

Feed additives can have a major impact on methane emissions. It’s not easy to incorporate to ensure consistent reductions while maintaining cow health and production, but it’s worth the effort.

Groups Sue FDA Over Livestock-Feed Additive

A coalition of advocacy groups sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, seeking to vacate its approvals of several livestock-feed products that are widely used to add weight to farm animals such as turkeys, cattle and pigs.

Is the Livestock Industry Destroying the Planet?

An abundance of science analyzing the impacts on the earth of livestock farming has concluded that humanity’s appetite for meat and dairy products is having serious environmental consequences. Livestock species contribute directly and indirectly to deforestation, water pollution, air pollution, greenhouse gases, global warming, desertification, erosion and human obesity, and virtually anywhere you go in the world, the damage done by ruminants, pigs and poultry, and those who grow feed crops for them, is visible on the land.

Natural feed additives in animal nutrition—Their potential as functional feed

In recent years, natural products have become of great importance as growth-promoting agents to replace antibiotics. There is a social pressure on animal production industries to improve animal production performances, minimize economic losses, and ensure the safety of products for human consumption.

Our Latest Report: A Controversial Animal Feed Additive Gets a Closer Look

“Although few Americans outside of the livestock industry have ever heard of ractopamine, the drug is controversial,” Bottemiller writes. “Fed to an estimated 60 to 80 percent of pigs in the United States, it has sickened or killed more of them than any other livestock drug on the market, Food and Drug Administration records show. Cattle and turkeys have also suffered high numbers of illnesses from the drug.”

Research Finds New Proof of the Importance of Animal Feed Additives

This year’s edition was notable for the discussions held on the reduction, and where possible replacement, of antibiotics in animal feed.

Row over feed additive to suppress methane production in cows escalates in UK

A delicate row is escalating in the UK following the announcement by one of the region’s biggest dairy processors that it was using a feed additive to suppress methane production in cows. The controversy started when Arla Foods, a Danish-Swedish company which owns the UK’s biggest dairy cooperative, announced it was trialing the feed additive Bovaer on 30 of its farms across the UK.

The future of livestock farming

A growing understanding of animals’ precise nutritional needs is producing feeds tailored to optimize their energy, protein, and vitamins while improving overall wellbeing—better yields and healthier herds.

The role of animal feed additives products in animal's wellbeing

Every species of animal, just like human beings, requires proper nutrition to maintain itself healthy and to have a proper growth. Unfortunately, raw materials are not enough to ensure every nutriment required, that’s where animal feed additives products come into play. Animal feed additives are used to introduce vitamins, minerals and amino acids in animal nutrition, essential elements that the animal can’t properly integrate in natural ways. The correct function of enzymes and hormones is linked with those essential elements, in case of deficiency the animal can go through several health issues, like infertility, poor growth rate, oxidative stress, bones shortening, delayed sexual maturity and irregular oestrus.

Understanding the risks and rewards of feed additives to mitigate enteric methane emissions with FACT for Beef

While it is exciting that new feed additive technologies may be available, realistically, these technologies need to make economic sense to become adopted in the industry at large. The economics of mitigating methane also become more challenging if feed additives do not have any animal performance (e.g., improvement of gain) co-benefits. As a result, to make feed additives a break-even proposition or profitable, other income streams, such as carbon credits, will likely need to be available.

What are feed additives?

You thought that animals ate plants, or grass or some other ‘food’ natural to their ilk. But in reality, in today’s factory farms, feeding livestock is a complicated endeavor fraught with controversy and split opinions.

Why misinformation about a cow feed additive prompted people to throw milk away

Opponents of the additive have pointed to a report by the FSA last year, which found that “3-NOP “should be considered corrosive to the eyes, a skin irritant, and potentially harmful by inhalation” to humans handling it. But experts emphasised that no traces of Bovaer or the compounds contained within it would be found in milk or other produce, as it is broken down in a cow’s stomach.

Resources

3 reasons some animal feed additives fail to sell

I have identified three common features among animal feed additives that fail to make an impact on the market.

3 traits of successful animal feed additives

If you read my blog on the three reasons why some additives fail to succeed, then you’re probably wondering what is my opinion on what makes a successful additive. Here’s my take on successful feed additives.

Animal feed additives

Requirements for the authorisation and marketing of feed additives, and a list of feed additives under withdrawal.

Feed & Additive Magazine

Feed & Additive Magazine is among the most influential publications in the animal nutrition and health, feed additives and ingredients and feed processing industries on a global scale and continues its publication life with the vision of being one of the leading information and communication channels.

Feed Strategy

Feed Strategy magazine is an international trade publication serving the global animal feed industry, examining how evolving consumer trends influence feed-to-farm-to-fork animal protein production and, in turn, the work of nutritionists and feed millers.