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Feed security through cross-species collaboration
74 Plays1 year ago
Fortiva's Dr. Stacie Crowder discusses immune modulation, nutritional strategies and the evolving science of protecting livestock through feed innovations.
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Transcript
Introduction to Feed Strategy Chat
00:00:08
Speaker
Hi everyone, welcome to Feed Strategy Chat.
00:00:12
Speaker
I'm your host, Jackie Remke, Editor-in-Chief of Watts Feed Brands.
00:00:16
Speaker
This edition of Feed Strategy Chat is brought to you by FeedStrategy.com.
00:00:21
Speaker
FeedStrategy.com is your source for the latest news and leading-edge analysis of the global animal feed industry.
Meet Dr. Stacey Crowder
00:00:31
Speaker
Today we're joined by Dr. Stacey Crowder, Director of Additive Sales and Technical Innovation with Fortiva, Orlando Lakes Purina Animal Nutrition brand.
00:00:42
Speaker
Dr. Crowder is a swine nutritionist who earned her degrees at Purdue University and has worked at Purina Animal Nutrition in various roles since 2012.
Biosecurity in Swine Nutrition
00:00:51
Speaker
Today, she's here to talk primarily about biosecurity and monogastric health, but I'm also going to ask her a few questions about broader nutrition topics, such as feed additive technologies, and her thoughts on some other pressing issues.
00:01:08
Speaker
Hi, Dr. Crowder.
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Speaker
How are you today?
00:01:11
Speaker
Hello.
00:01:11
Speaker
I'm very well today.
00:01:12
Speaker
Thank you.
00:01:13
Speaker
Excellent.
00:01:14
Speaker
Thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to speak with me.
00:01:19
Speaker
So in the wake of the disease challenges that the poultry industry has been grappling with the last few years, based on your experience and what you've seen with your customers, what do you think has been the most impactful change to biosecurity protocols that has become the result of these outbreaks?
00:01:43
Speaker
Yes, thank you for the question.
00:01:45
Speaker
I would say that as an industry, when we started to see the outbreak of diseases that were causing high mortality in the swine industry in early 2013, 2014, was the producers and the nutritionists, so live animal production managers, nutritionists, and health services and veterinarians,
00:02:11
Speaker
came together to really evaluate operational biosecurity and understanding that it's not just biosecurity for animal movement and isolation of animals before they enter the herd or the flock.
Industry Shifts in Feed Biosecurity
00:02:25
Speaker
It's really understanding
00:02:28
Speaker
people movement, animal movement, equipment.
00:02:32
Speaker
And the one area that we hadn't had really good protocols or a lot of discussion around is this area called feed biosecurity.
00:02:41
Speaker
So it was identified in those discussions that there was a gap.
00:02:47
Speaker
And so this feed biosecurity topic area really rose to the forefront after those breaks.
00:02:53
Speaker
And it came from
00:02:55
Speaker
like I said, the meeting of the minds, so to speak, of a nutritionist setting down with a veterinarian and a live production manager and really understanding we're on the same team and how can we really evaluate the disease pressure and maybe entry points where it could be getting into an operation.
00:03:15
Speaker
And so that's probably the most exciting thing I saw because in my prior years in the industry as a nutritionist,
00:03:24
Speaker
I never really sat across the table from a veterinarian and really partnered on identifying what maybe the gap or the problem area might be and then coordinating or collaborating on what a possible solution might be.
Pathogen Challenges in Monogastric Nutrition
00:03:39
Speaker
And aside from these very destructive and highly contagious viruses, will you identify some of those endemic pathogens that monogastric nutritionists have been grappling with and what they should be mindful of when developing feeding programs in general and what measures they should maybe be taking to mitigate those disease challenges?
00:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, so when you think about from the monogastric space, I'm going to be a little more skewed towards swine as I've been in that industry longer than the poultry work that I've done.
00:04:18
Speaker
But if I look at the area, so from swine, it's going to be focused on PEDV and the PERS virus.
00:04:29
Speaker
And there's been a lot of work on the feed biosecurity space of looking at the Seneca Valley virus,
00:04:35
Speaker
And then ASF, of course, as understanding, are we prepared and understanding how this disease might impact?
00:04:44
Speaker
And then influenza.
00:04:47
Speaker
And if we think about from a poultry standpoint in the feed biosecurity space for many years, really thinking of from a salmonella, so from a bacterial standpoint, we've had avian influenza,
00:05:00
Speaker
the high path avian influenza work right now with the most current outbreaks, but that has been happening, started before this year.
00:05:11
Speaker
There just seems to be this most current outbreaks right now are extremely in very heavy poultry dense areas.
00:05:19
Speaker
And so as we think about it, our area of research or most of the feed biosecurity space is focused on what I refer to as a
00:05:29
Speaker
we focus on the envelope viruses.
00:05:31
Speaker
There are non-envelope viruses that are less receptive to disinfectants, less receptive to feed mitigation type technologies, whereas the envelope viruses have a lipid membrane around them, which makes them function very similarly to a bacteria in which they're more susceptible to mitigation technologies or disinfectants.
00:05:59
Speaker
Can you tell us a little bit more about envelope viruses versus what would be in contrast to that type of pathogen?
Understanding Envelope Viruses
00:06:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:09
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So an envelope virus is a virus that has a fat membrane around it.
00:06:15
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We call that a bilipid membrane.
00:06:18
Speaker
And it's very similar to the bacterial membranes.
00:06:21
Speaker
And so why that's important is
00:06:24
Speaker
is there are non-envelope viruses, and those are less susceptible to disinfectants, less susceptible to feed mitigation type products in the feed biosecurity space.
00:06:37
Speaker
But that envelope is important because it's how the virus actually replicates or interacts in the host animal.
00:06:47
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And so the reason we focus on envelope viruses is if we can disrupt that
00:06:54
Speaker
envelope or a bacterial membrane, we can actually inhibit or reduce the infectivity of those viruses.
00:07:01
Speaker
So a lot of the feed biosecurity work will be looking at viral particles and PCR testing and showing that you reduce the amount of viral particles present.
00:07:12
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And an envelope, if a envelope is disrupted or broken down,
00:07:18
Speaker
and the virus is not inside the cell in which it replicates, you in essence reduce its ability to become infective.
00:07:27
Speaker
Thank you so much for that background.
00:07:29
Speaker
I needed that to help frame everything.
00:07:31
Speaker
Now, with the detection of HPAI and dairy herds and how that has put a heightened focus on cross-species disease transmission, based on your experience, what key learnings about pathogen control could poultry producers adopt from other livestock sectors?
00:07:52
Speaker
Yeah, that's actually a great question.
00:07:55
Speaker
And just as much as the advancements we made when I said the nutritionist, the veterinarian, and the live production managers sat down together, it's really interesting and exciting when you can sit down with nutritionists or
00:08:11
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experts from a ruminant category like a dairy cattle with the HPAI outbreak and a swine nutritionist or a poultry nutritionist and really understand the health challenges and focusing on what's worked in the monogastric space where a lot of feed biosecurity work has been done.
00:08:32
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And can that translate to the dairy cow and understanding do any of those products or things in which
00:08:39
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technologies that we have identified that are effective, can they be effective in that dairy cow?
00:08:44
Speaker
But transitioning to the poultry industry, I think there's a lot that we can share in that type of interaction between the different species is that there is value to that.
00:08:57
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Like I said, in
Cross-Species Biosecurity Insights
00:08:59
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early 2013, 2014, when the PEDV outbreak in swine really brought this topic to the forefront, poultry producers,
00:09:08
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had really been focused on mostly a salmonella type of mitigation in the feed and reducing the amount of salmonella pressure coming into their operation.
00:09:19
Speaker
So they might use a feed sanitation type technology for that.
00:09:23
Speaker
But there hadn't been a lot of work done on viruses.
00:09:26
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And so in the research and the development of technology, specifically in my background, we had focused on the swine side and then had actually started looking at a poultry application
00:09:37
Speaker
for those technologies specifically to high path prior to our breaks in 2022, we started looking at high path avian influenza research.
00:09:48
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And so we were prepared at that time to work with the dairy nutritionists and really offer opportunities for them to look at feed mitigation products that actually have an immune response.
00:10:01
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It's not just that they're reducing the
00:10:04
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viral or bacterial pressure in the feed, but to really evaluate what mitigation product works best or what's effective against the particular pathogen that you're focused on, it's really, I like to focus on a beyond the feeder aspect.
00:10:19
Speaker
And when that product or technology is in the animal's diet, that it actually has an immune modulatory response, which can help reduce severity and incidence of disease
00:10:31
Speaker
And I think when you start to think about the immune system or nutrient digestion of those diets, that's when it doesn't necessarily matter if you're a ruminant nutritionist or a monogastric nutritionist.
00:10:44
Speaker
We can actually talk in the same terms and technologies cross over.
00:10:49
Speaker
Right.
00:10:49
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So perhaps by the time that these groups of nutritionists or other stakeholders come together, the problem is already in play.
00:11:01
Speaker
What role does timing play in these nutritional interventions, both from a preventative and a reactive approach?
00:11:11
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Yeah, that's actually a really good question in understanding when you start to use a technology, how fast you're going to see the response, right?
00:11:20
Speaker
And if we think about it, preventative is always best if it's in the diet before you have the problem.
00:11:26
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I like to say when I talk to swine producers, but the animals don't send you a message and tell you next week I'm going to get sick.
00:11:32
Speaker
So that in practice becomes a little harder and logistics is always going to be something you have to work through.
00:11:40
Speaker
So as you start to think about putting things in the diet and addressing diseases, there is always going to be some technologies are going to have a loading time, which means that they go in the diet and you don't see the immune modulatory response or the growth response of those for like seven to 10 days.
00:12:02
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And so it takes time for that response to actually manifest in the animal.
00:12:09
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And it's really different if you're coming in as starting it as a preventative, maybe where your production's at, whatever state they're located at, there is a disease outbreak in the area.
00:12:21
Speaker
Maybe their animals are healthy and at that point you want to get something in.
00:12:26
Speaker
And so that'll be a little bit faster of a response.
00:12:28
Speaker
If you start to notice that, well, I'm starting to see disease outbreak and then you put something in,
00:12:35
Speaker
is always going to be a delayed response, even longer than that seven to 10 day loading for those technologies to work because now you're at a treatment level.
00:12:44
Speaker
And so once the disease has started in a flock or in a barn, whether that be swine or ruminants, but if your flock's already experiencing disease, then the level of intervention needs to be higher.
00:13:03
Speaker
And then some diseases,
00:13:06
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there are, there are reportable diseases and then there is rules around how you can handle those after the disease outbreak.
00:13:13
Speaker
So that is going to be things you have to keep in mind when you're looking at evaluating technologies and what works best for which your flock is really going to focus on the disease pressure that that flock is experiencing, as well as what's the environment around that flock that you want to protect it from.
Gut Health Strategies in Poultry
00:13:32
Speaker
So switching gears to explore these additive technologies, recently Feed Strategy conducted its annual Poultry Nutrition and Feed Survey.
00:13:43
Speaker
So that is our March-April cover story.
00:13:46
Speaker
It's, I think, our 12th year doing it.
00:13:49
Speaker
As a nutritionist with a ton of experience in monogastric health, perhaps you can help examine some of these trends with me.
00:13:58
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One of the findings shows that
00:14:02
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Many of the respondents are adopting multiple gut health strategies simultaneously from mycotoxin control to precision enzymes to immunomodulators.
00:14:15
Speaker
What key indicators do you look for when determining which interventions are making a positive impact?
00:14:24
Speaker
Yes.
00:14:25
Speaker
So as I look at the different technologies, I focus mainly on what is the response I'm wanting to cause?
00:14:36
Speaker
What's actually stealing your performance?
00:14:39
Speaker
So is it inflammatory response at the gut?
00:14:41
Speaker
Is it a dysbiosis or an unbalanced gut microbiome?
00:14:47
Speaker
And so when you focus from the physiological response that you want to impact,
00:14:53
Speaker
then the technologies really kind of sort themselves of what technology actually has the ability to impact that metabolic process or specific pathway and the receptors needed.
00:15:06
Speaker
So if you're thinking of it from an inflammation standpoint or antioxidant status, you know, there are certain different products and whether it's a toxin that's causing the dysbiosis or it's a
00:15:22
Speaker
nutrient utilization where an enzyme can help break that down, or it's a low level pathogen exposure that's causing some insult to the intestinal lining, where then I would be focused more on an immune modulatory and can we have a local response there in the intestines.
00:15:41
Speaker
So it really comes back to the physiological function you want, and then you work backwards basically.
00:15:47
Speaker
So instead of what
00:15:49
Speaker
when I started in the nutrition world, we would have said, oh, I need to use this enzyme.
00:15:54
Speaker
I need this type of a phytogenic or plant botanical.
00:15:58
Speaker
And I need this from a yeast type category.
00:16:01
Speaker
And they're all going to do these different things.
00:16:04
Speaker
And our responses were really varied and it would work one time, but it wouldn't work again.
00:16:10
Speaker
It wouldn't work on dirty litter, but it might work on clean litter or vice versa.
00:16:14
Speaker
And so we got to seeing product, um,
00:16:16
Speaker
ineffectiveness or not seeing a consistent return on investment for the producer.
00:16:21
Speaker
So what I've seen in my career and working as a nutritionist and working with nutritionists was focus on the physiological response we want to impact.
00:16:32
Speaker
And that way, your effectiveness or return on investment for that producer is there more consistently.
00:16:40
Speaker
So
00:16:40
Speaker
That, like I said, that focus on the metabolic process you want to impact and then the additive technology or nutritional technology product that actually has the mode of action to elicit the response you're looking for.
Role of Symbiotics in Gut Health
00:16:55
Speaker
Great.
00:16:55
Speaker
Thank you.
00:16:56
Speaker
49% of the respondents said that they're turning to symbiotics, which for those not in the know is defined as a mixture of probiotics and prebiotics to promote the growth and activity of beneficial bacteria in the animal's gut.
00:17:11
Speaker
What's the framework for evaluating when to use prebiotics and probiotics together versus alone or in other combinations?
00:17:21
Speaker
Yeah, I would say this is probably a question that I have seen posed multiple times.
00:17:28
Speaker
It seems to be, confusion's not the right word, but it is really understanding what each one of them is doing.
00:17:35
Speaker
And so when you think about a prebiotic or a probiotic and that gut microbiome, I like to think of in terms of, I'm going to use kind of gardening terms, right?
00:17:44
Speaker
You're going to weed, you're going to feed, and you're going to seed.
00:17:48
Speaker
And so
00:17:49
Speaker
We don't use the same products to weed the garden or to feed it, right?
00:17:54
Speaker
The nutrients or the minerals and things in there.
00:17:57
Speaker
And then when you seed it, you don't use what you use to weed it, right?
00:18:00
Speaker
That's going to kill things off.
00:18:01
Speaker
And so think of it in those terms.
00:18:04
Speaker
And if you are focused on your prebiotic or your probiotic or your postbiotic or all of those category of products or technology spaces is really understanding what you're trying to do and getting a baseline,
00:18:17
Speaker
for what your, where your flock is, where's your flock at today?
00:18:20
Speaker
Where do you see maybe some in understanding there's been a lot of work in the microbiome in poultry and swine to really characterize a healthy balance.
00:18:31
Speaker
So when you look at your baseline for where your flock is, what, where's, where is that baseline at to the known good and the bad elements there?
00:18:42
Speaker
And then that's going to give you an impact and, and, and,
00:18:45
Speaker
interaction to or an understanding there of the functionality of the microbiome.
00:18:50
Speaker
And if you make changes, what is that going to look like from a functionality standpoint of the microbiome?
00:18:55
Speaker
And then it's going to be all right.
00:18:56
Speaker
I see a high level of a class of bacteria that is known to have a negative impact and I'm seeing slightly less weights or my feed conversions are dropping and
00:19:09
Speaker
then you're going to really want to come in there and say, all right, do I need to weed it?
00:19:13
Speaker
Do I need to clear out and get rid of some of those negative ones?
00:19:19
Speaker
Do I need to feed the good ones?
00:19:20
Speaker
What's going to make that good bacteria grow?
00:19:24
Speaker
So you need to feed that.
00:19:26
Speaker
So understanding how you use the prebiotic products and then seeding it and making sure you have the right population there that can colonize and grow and influence that microbiome.
00:19:40
Speaker
I think that's an excellent analogy.
00:19:42
Speaker
Thank you very much for sharing that.
Medium Chain Fatty Acids Usage
00:19:44
Speaker
So I know that you've done extensive work with medium chain fatty acids.
00:19:49
Speaker
This year, the respondents to the survey indicated that they plan to increase their MCFA inclusions.
00:19:57
Speaker
Are there any special or key considerations for doing this?
00:20:04
Speaker
Yes.
00:20:04
Speaker
So there's probably the main one is back to what is the...
00:20:09
Speaker
the purpose or a metabolic process or that you're really trying to impact because medium chain fatty acids are found in multiple forms.
00:20:20
Speaker
So when you think about that technology, they are in glycerol forms.
00:20:24
Speaker
So they may have their, their fatty acids stuck to a glycerol backbone.
00:20:28
Speaker
They can be a monoglyceride, a diglyceride, or in a triglyceride form.
00:20:33
Speaker
But the reason you're utilizing the medium chain fatty acid is for the free fatty acid or the functionality of that free fatty acid.
00:20:41
Speaker
So the impact to the animal is going to come later on into the digestion process there because you need the pancreatic lipase to break the glycerol off.
00:20:53
Speaker
So if you're wanting a product that delivers feed biosecurity or can be an energy source or address pathogens,
00:21:03
Speaker
that are in the gut as the feed's moving through, then it's not going to be as effective early on in the digestion process.
00:21:12
Speaker
It's going to be later.
00:21:13
Speaker
And so that pancreatic lipase will be your bottleneck.
00:21:16
Speaker
So it typically will need higher inclusion levels than the other forms.
00:21:21
Speaker
The second form is that you're going to see this technology offered to producers is in a salt form.
00:21:28
Speaker
So it's going to have a calcium or sodium attached to it.
00:21:31
Speaker
And so that's going to get you activity a little earlier into the digestion, but it's still going to need an acidic environment.
00:21:40
Speaker
So in terms of swine nutrition, it's not effective until it hits the stomach so that the acidic environment actually cleaves off that sodium or calcium.
00:21:50
Speaker
In certain species, that can give off a soapy taste and can inhibit intake.
00:21:55
Speaker
So that's where you need to balance what you're trying to achieve in the animal from the medium chains.
00:22:02
Speaker
versus a negative impact to the intake.
00:22:05
Speaker
And then there's also products that are what are referred to as free fatty acids or activated medium chain fatty acids that don't require any step.
00:22:14
Speaker
And they're actually gonna be effective in the feed, in the stomach, and as they go into the digestion process, they can be immediately absorbed as an energy source.
00:22:24
Speaker
And so really understanding the medium chain category
00:22:29
Speaker
you have to take those forms into consideration.
00:22:31
Speaker
So if you're looking for something to be impactful in the feed bin, so at the time of manufacturing to the time it breaches your birds, if it would come in contact with any type of pathogen exposure, then that free fatty acids actually going to be more effective versus if you're looking for a metabolic response or metabolism, then a different product that is effective further into the digestive system can give a benefit in the animal
00:22:58
Speaker
versus in the feed.
00:22:59
Speaker
And so that's how you can sort through the different technologies that a producer may have access to and to determine which one's right for their operation.
Balancing Health Additives and Costs
00:23:10
Speaker
The high cost of raw materials and feed additives is, of course, an evergreen topic.
00:23:16
Speaker
How do you make the case for producers who prioritize health-promoting additives when tight margins are their primary concern?
00:23:27
Speaker
Yeah, this is kind of the age-old question.
00:23:30
Speaker
So I've been in the feed industry since the early 2000s, so for quite a few years.
00:23:36
Speaker
And this is really kind of the paradigm that we've always tried to weigh is understanding.
00:23:42
Speaker
And I'll use kind of an example to think about it.
00:23:46
Speaker
And I mentioned it kind of earlier is gut health.
00:23:48
Speaker
And when you talk about a product that's immune modulatory or gut health,
00:23:52
Speaker
What does the producer see?
00:23:53
Speaker
What does that live production manager see that they can say, it's working.
00:23:58
Speaker
I know it's working.
00:24:00
Speaker
We need to continue to use it because I see our investment paying off.
00:24:04
Speaker
It's harder to do when it's something that is impacting at the gut level or in the respiratory tract of an animal.
00:24:10
Speaker
You can't see that.
00:24:11
Speaker
That's different.
00:24:12
Speaker
So you're going to need to be looking at your production from all aspects.
00:24:18
Speaker
So is it treats?
00:24:20
Speaker
Is it fall behind animals?
00:24:22
Speaker
Is it pounds of product out the door?
00:24:26
Speaker
Your feed conversion rates.
00:24:28
Speaker
So when feed costs are super high and volatile, moving around quite a bit.
00:24:34
Speaker
And in our current status of feed ingredients is a lot of additive technologies that are into feed.
00:24:43
Speaker
We import in.
00:24:44
Speaker
And so there's shipping, there's transportation fees as energy costs go up, manufacturing costs.
00:24:49
Speaker
And so
00:24:50
Speaker
As you're evaluating those, I would focus for producers on what is going to return to them the biggest bang for their buck.
00:24:59
Speaker
So I like to say products that give you extra gain, those are valuable when you need the gain.
00:25:04
Speaker
So they're only valuable when you're going to put a dollar amount of return to that gain.
00:25:09
Speaker
But feed conversion pays you every day.
00:25:12
Speaker
Feed conversion translates to less feed needed to get the animal to a particular weight.
00:25:18
Speaker
which translates to less feed needs to be manufactured, which translates to less feed needs to be hauled.
00:25:24
Speaker
So when you think about how much a feed conversion response impacts a producer's bottom line, if they're a large integrator and they have their own feed system, are you thinking about the savings at the feed mill?
00:25:42
Speaker
Less feed that needed to be manufacturing.
00:25:44
Speaker
You're taking your
00:25:45
Speaker
valuable resource of those in those grain inputs into the diet, stretching them over a larger number of birds or a larger number of pigs.
00:25:54
Speaker
And so you can spread that kind of cost out and really looking at it as an operational efficiency and making sure you're not missing an evaluation or not giving enough credit to that technology.
00:26:05
Speaker
And so I really work with producers on understanding what is their true ROI.
00:26:10
Speaker
An ROI is different for every producer.
00:26:14
Speaker
On the swine side, we've got facility costs.
00:26:16
Speaker
They may own that facility, they may not.
00:26:18
Speaker
And so is it income over facility costs?
00:26:21
Speaker
Is it income over feed costs?
00:26:22
Speaker
And so really, I think it really needs to be as a nutritionist at a poultry operation or a live production manager that's managing their input cost is really evaluating the impact to their entire system.
00:26:38
Speaker
And is it better birds hitting the processing line
00:26:43
Speaker
is it, I like to talk on the swine side, it's more pounds of pork walking out the door.
00:26:47
Speaker
And those silent thieves, you can't see how much it's stealing from you, but you can measure that in certain times of the year where you got less pork walking out the door.
00:26:58
Speaker
And so if you can have a slight reduction in mortality, you can actually impact it because that's one or two more pigs walking out the door.
00:27:07
Speaker
That's
00:27:08
Speaker
they're going to be 280 to 300 plus pounds.
00:27:11
Speaker
And so you talk about that pounds of pork walking out the door.
00:27:14
Speaker
On a poultry operation, it's the pound of product that leaves your facility.
00:27:18
Speaker
And so think of it in those terms, and I think it'll be an easier evaluation.
Environmental Impact vs. Health Performance
00:27:23
Speaker
With sustainability goals increasingly influencing feed formulations, how do you balance the environmental impact of production with optimal monogastric health and performance?
00:27:39
Speaker
Yeah, so I think every monogastric nutritionist probably is thinking, I really want to hear what our answer is to this one, because it is a topic that we're spending a lot of time understanding.
00:27:52
Speaker
And as a nutritionist, when we formulate, we're used to looking at formulation and what each ingredient brings to the table from a nutrient standpoint.
00:28:02
Speaker
I was taught early on in the industry when I joined, animals don't need ingredients.
00:28:09
Speaker
They need nutrients.
00:28:10
Speaker
So understanding what each ingredient in the diet brings to the table from either a nutrient availability or nutrient absorption level, so bioavailability, or does it impact another ingredient, like an enzyme would impact other ingredients being more useful.
00:28:29
Speaker
And the piece that we've not, like I said, since the early 2000s, I've been in the industry.
00:28:33
Speaker
And the piece that we're trying to build out right now is what is that sustainability?
00:28:39
Speaker
impact?
00:28:40
Speaker
Is it on the dairy side, there's been a lot of talk on methane reduction.
00:28:45
Speaker
So are there things that we can do that we feed to the animal that actually reduces the methane production and impacts that digestion?
00:28:53
Speaker
So then there would be a sustainability value to that ingredient.
00:28:58
Speaker
When we think about it from the monogastric side, I'll go back to my feed conversion response conversation of understanding products and
00:29:09
Speaker
that especially in the additive category that may not have a nutrient matrix behind them and understanding is there a sustainability matrix, is there a sustainability index that this product has a three points of feed conversion or what does one point of feed conversion mean on a sustainability index?
00:29:30
Speaker
And so the industry is actually developing what those technologies are
00:29:37
Speaker
might be or how they're going to be evaluated.
00:29:40
Speaker
So I would say stay tuned.
00:29:42
Speaker
But I try to look at from a reduced use of resources and can I stretch your feed dollar to spend like a dollar and a half or spend like two dollars.
00:29:56
Speaker
So can I make one plus one equal three?
00:29:59
Speaker
Not because I'm bad at math, but because I want us to get a multiplying effect.
00:30:03
Speaker
If I'm using a technology,
00:30:05
Speaker
I want it to multiply the effect of what I'm already using, not to duplicate.
00:30:09
Speaker
And so when you think of it in those terms, that's really what a nutritionist, if we look into the future, is really going to have to be prepared for is I think we're going to evaluate all ingredients, not just additive technologies, but kind of total diet makeup.
00:30:26
Speaker
And what is the environmental impact?
00:30:28
Speaker
We kind of did this a little bit in the swine industry when we started looking at the value of manure and using manure as a fertilizer or selling it to farmers as a fertilizer replacement for certain things that they might be adding on to their row crop operation.
00:30:45
Speaker
But this is taking it to a whole new level.
00:30:47
Speaker
What does this nutrient profile based on that, the animal performance associated with it,
00:30:53
Speaker
then what is that sustainability index?
00:30:55
Speaker
What does that mean?
00:30:57
Speaker
And I think a lot of that still, we don't know.
00:30:59
Speaker
We don't know what it means.
00:31:01
Speaker
We're working that out.
00:31:02
Speaker
We kind of understand what it means from a feed conversion or average daily gain standpoint, but what does that mean on a sustainability index?
00:31:08
Speaker
And can we actually help the producer understand and understand is it valuable?
00:31:16
Speaker
Can we monetize it?
00:31:17
Speaker
You know, there's a lot of talk on carbon reductions and those types of things.
00:31:20
Speaker
I think that's just the tip of the iceberg in this space.
Future of Feed Technologies
00:31:25
Speaker
We've covered a lot of ground today and given some of the things we've discussed and of course your experience in the industry and the things that you're probably looking at and following in your own time, what emerging feed technologies or nutritional strategies excite you the most?
00:31:47
Speaker
um, when you're looking to the future and some of the, the developing areas, um, for some of these challenges?
00:31:57
Speaker
Yeah, that's, that's kind of a loaded question for someone that sits in my seat, um, that is a kind of responsible for additives across multiple species.
00:32:06
Speaker
So I have a lot of things that pique my interest.
00:32:10
Speaker
I think the ones that are most exciting to me, um,
00:32:15
Speaker
Because I am a scientist, right?
00:32:19
Speaker
I've done a lot of research.
00:32:20
Speaker
And so where I can geek out on the science and really get behind a technology is when I think this immune modulatory space is very interesting to me.
00:32:33
Speaker
So from a nutritionist, you think, okay, well, that's probably a veterinary term.
00:32:37
Speaker
Everybody talks about immune system and medications, right?
00:32:40
Speaker
And I've really taken a different approach to it.
00:32:42
Speaker
And why it excites me is that 70 to 80% of the animal's immune system is in the gut.
00:32:49
Speaker
And so I feel like there is space and opportunity from a nutrition standpoint to understand the immune response of immune receptors and how they respond to dietary components that
00:33:07
Speaker
And I think that's where we're gonna see a lot of advancements is especially, I've seen it even in the last five years since the VFD took effect in 2017, where we started really sharpening our pencil on production and nutrition and the impacts of it and not having that, putting medication in the feed as an automatic, oh, I see something, so let's put that in there.
00:33:34
Speaker
I've seen so many advancements
00:33:36
Speaker
from a gut health standpoint or an enteric disease.
00:33:39
Speaker
What excites me is I believe there's technologies that impact respiratory.
00:33:45
Speaker
And that's been the nut that's a little harder to crack because how can we feed something that gives us a systemic response that actually reduces respiratory challenges?
00:33:58
Speaker
And I'm seeing a lot of research be published.
00:34:00
Speaker
I'm seeing a lot of advancements here in the space of some of the technologies we've talked about on this conversation that are promising technologies that I think are actually going to change the way we raise livestock, especially in the United States, but even globally.
00:34:18
Speaker
These are global technologies that impact across the world.
00:34:22
Speaker
And getting more out of less, we're going to have to do more of that.
00:34:26
Speaker
I don't think anybody
00:34:27
Speaker
thinks that we're going to find more land that we can do agriculture on.
00:34:35
Speaker
So I think the advancements of respiratory disease and enteric diseases that we can actually mitigate with nutritional technologies, that excites me a lot.
00:34:48
Speaker
Thank you so much, Dr. Crowder.
00:34:50
Speaker
And thanks to you for tuning in.