Abstract
The goal of the research was to investigate the effect of dietary natural or biotic additives such as garlic, black pepper, and chili pepper powder in poultry nutrition on sustainable and economic efficiency of this type of production. A total of eight dietary treatments with 1200 broiler chickens of hybrid line Hubbard were formed, with four replicates. During the experimental period, chickens were fed with three period mixtures diets of different average costs: Starter compound mixture two weeks (0.38 €/kg in all treatments), grower compound mixture next three weeks (0.36, 0.38, 0.40, 0.41, 0.46, 0.39, 0.42, and 0.39 €/kg, respectively), and finisher compound mixture for the final week (0.34, 0.36, 0.38, 0.39, 0.44, 0.37, 0.40, and 0.37 €/kg, respectively). The experiment lasted a total of 42 days. Upon finishing the experiment, results have shown statistically significant (p < 0.05) differences regarding the European broiler index (EBI) as one of the indicators of economic efficacy. The EBI was lowest in the control treatment (220.4) and significantly higher in experimental treatments (298.6), respectively. In cost, a calculation included the cost of feed and used natural or biotic supplements in chicken nutrition. The findings of the study of economic efficiency revealed that the cost per treatment rises depends on the natural additive used. Economic efficiency analysis showed that the most economical natural additive with the lowest cost is garlic (0.68 €/kg), while the most uneconomical is treatment with black pepper with the highest cost of body weight gain (0.82 €/kg). This higher cost of the gained meat is minimal as a consequence of a much healthier and more nutritious food meant for human use, which often promotes sustainable aspects, compared to conventional and industrialized poultry production.
Highlights
Animal nutrition plays an especially important role and feed accounts for up to almost eighty percent of total livestock production costs [1]
The constant increase of feed ingredient costs, major protein feedstuff such as soybean meal, forces producers to refocus how they will use their resources in feeding to increase economic efficiency to make the extra mile more efficient to convert feed protein into high-quality meat products [3,4]. Another problem comes with the prohibition of antibiotics used in livestock growth promotion due to antimicrobial tolerance development [5], the natural alternative for growth promoting in animal nutrition has been required [6]
When excluded from daily nutrition, antibiotics as growth promoters were not replaced with natural alternatives, which has led to numerous problems in production, such as the increase of feed conversion ratio (FCR) and increased incidence and outbreaks of animal diseases [7,8,9]
Summary
Animal nutrition plays an especially important role and feed accounts for up to almost eighty percent of total livestock production costs [1]. The constant increase of feed ingredient costs, major protein feedstuff such as soybean meal, forces producers to refocus how they will use their resources in feeding to increase economic efficiency to make the extra mile more efficient to convert feed protein into high-quality meat products [3,4] Another problem comes with the prohibition of antibiotics used in livestock growth promotion due to antimicrobial tolerance development [5], the natural alternative for growth promoting in animal nutrition has been required [6]. It is necessary to re-evaluate and fine-tune established nutritional concepts
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