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How can trace minerals improve poultry health?
23 Plays1 year ago
Hugo Romero-Sanchez, global poultry technology lead for Novus International, discusses how trace minerals benefit birds.
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Transcript
Introduction to Trace Minerals in Poultry
00:00:00
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Hello and welcome to the Feed Strategy Podcast.
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I'm your host, Feed Strategy Senior Reporter, Anne Roos.
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Hugo Romero-Sanchez is Global Poultry Technology Lead for Novus International.
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We spoke recently about trace minerals, what they are, how they benefit birds, and he told me about some recent studies he's worked on involving trace minerals in poultry.
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Here's our conversation.
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Hi, Hugo.
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Thanks for being here.
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Thank you, Anne.
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Happy to be here with you.
00:00:25
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I'll start by asking you to explain what trace minerals are and why they're important.
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So trace minerals are required in low amount, like parts per million or milligrams per kilogram, different to the macrominerals required in percentage or grams per kilogram.
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These trace minerals are essential for many enzymes.
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They are part of more than 500 metalloenzytes affecting diverse functions from antioxidant effects, cellular respiration, DNA replication,
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tissue integrity reproduction.
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So they are powerful catalyzers, but they are very tightly regulated by a precise homerostatic system that are not fully developed by bacteria.
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Therefore, these trace minerals can be used to control bacteria growth.
Roles of Essential Trace Minerals
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What are some examples of trace minerals and how do they benefit birds?
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Well, the classical examples, of course, are zinc, copper, manganese, but very important also selenium.
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We also have iron and iron.
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As I mentioned before, these are part of metalloenzyme.
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So, for example, zinc participate in enzymes like carbonic anhydrase, which is very important for acid-based metabolisms and egg shell formation.
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Also, zinc is very important in the RNA and DNA polymerases.
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that control protein synthesis, of course, affecting growth and reproduction.
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Also seen very important in the superoxide dismutase and very powerful antioxidant.
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And just to give you two examples of copper and iron, we know iron is important in the oxygen transport in the hemoglobin, affecting or producing anemia in a deficiency.
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But even also copper can produce anemia because copper will affect
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iron absorption and hemoglobin synthesis.
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Also, copper participates in collagen synthesis, so a deficiency in copper could produce rupture in the aorta and could affect the bone structure.
Organic vs Inorganic Minerals: A Comparison
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What is the difference between organic and inorganic minerals, and why would producers choose one over the other?
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Well, the inorganic sources are commonly used due to the high concentration and lower price.
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However, they are less bioavailable, and therefore we need to use higher amounts, but this also will increase some susceptibility to suffer antagonism and to react with some components of the diet, like phytates, oxalates, and even some fiber.
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On the other hand, the organic trace minerals, they were developed to mimic how minerals are bound in nature, and they are bound to amino acids.
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This is to avoid interactions and to facilitate the delivery to the absorption site.
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We can use different ligands to avoid the reactions with the feed components and to decrease antagonism.
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We can, between these ligands, we can use organic acids and amino acids.
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Since these metals are part of proteins, we prefer to select amino acids to bind these metals.
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Normally, companies can use one amino acid in a covalent bond, but nobuse, we have selected the HMTBA molecule, the hydroxymethyl butylate acid, and we use two of these molecules to have four covalent bonds to the trisminor.
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It's very important because we can also add metionic value.
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This is very important because in one of our standard programs, we can add
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about 475 grams of methionine value per metric ton.
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So we need to consider this to reduce the price of the diet.
Impact of Trace Minerals on Hens Post-Molting
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Can you tell me about a study recently completed on the effects of copper, zinc, and manganese on layer hens after induced molting?
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Yes, that was a very interesting trial that we conducted in Mexico.
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Molting is a natural seasonal event in which birds
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substantially reduce feed intake, cesec production, and replace plumage.
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However, the induced malting is a process that stimulates these natural malting events.
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And when bears return to full feed, a new plumage develops and the bears will resume egg production at a higher rate and with better egg quality.
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However, malting has sustainability and welfare implications that I won't discuss today.
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We do not encourage malting per se, but we found that in Mexico, due to the high pathogenic avian influenza, producers learn how to use malting.
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And they even use early malting to cope with the disease and the economic pressure from this devastating disease.
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And they requested our help to improve how the hand performance could improve after this stressful process that is the malting.
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Therefore, we tested our reduce and replace strategy in lane hens that we previously did trials with lane hens and broiler breeders and layered strains of breeders.
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And we knew that using lower amount of these minerals with higher bioavailability, we could improve the performance.
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So in this trial, we use a standard program with 40, 10, 40 ppms of zinc, copper and manganese respectively.
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for 16 weeks after the induced molecule.
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And basically, we observed a significant improvement of 2.1% in egg production.
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And similarly, we reduced the feed conversion in 5.5 points
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And additionally, we also mentioned the egg shell quality, and we observed a significant treatment and time interaction that shows that this viscillae improved egg shell quality, reflected by shell thickness and lower resistance to, I mean, the resistance to fracture, that at the end represents less broken eggs and more syllable eggs.
Recent Studies on Breeder Production and Egg Quality
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That's interesting.
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Do you have any other recent studies on trace minerals that you'd like to discuss?
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Yes.
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Well, basically, we published in the last two years two very interesting papers.
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One was published in Frontiers of Physiology, where we basically tested this methyl hydroxyanalog chylate to improve breeder production and egg quality and also improve the tibial development of the project.
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So this is a very interesting trial that we did in Brazil.
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Also, we did another trial in the US at the University of Georgia, where we proved that this HMTBA, which is MinTREX, in combination with inorganic and alone, was able to overperform a very high trace mineral inclusion.
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In this inclusion, they used 143 parts per million of zinc,
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125 of copper and 180 of mangan.
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And we observed that with Mintres and with the mix, we were able to observe higher egg production, especially with the mix.
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And also we laid heavier eggs compared with the control group.
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Also, the broilers hatch with the young hens, 29 weeks of age with the organic, with Mintres, basically.
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They had higher bone mineral density.
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And also we observe at seven days these better bone mineral density.
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So in conclusion from this trial, we provide a good tool to improve not only the breeders' performance, but also to improve the progeny performance.
00:08:49
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Well, it sounds like you've been very busy.
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So thank you for taking your time today to talk with me.
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Thank you, and it's a pleasure to be with you.
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And thanks once again to the audience for listening.
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I'm Anne Roos for Feed Strategy.