August 26, 2021

AB Vista shares feed additive research at Poultry Science Association meeting

AB Vista experts shared their latest feed additive research and poultry nutrition knowledge by delivering abstracts at the recent Poultry Science Association's virtual annual meeting.

The presentations included two new pieces of research which support AB Vista's Stimbiotic concept involving products that can stimulate the development of a fibre fermentable microbiome.

AB Vista global technical manager Gilson Gomes clarified how the performance of broilers fed diets differing on soluble arabinoxylan content – with or without stimbiotic supplementation – is impacted, by outlining the findings from a trial to evaluate the effect of dietary non-starch polysaccharides (NSPs) and soluble arabinoxylans (sAX) when compared against a corn/ corn-soybean meal diet.

Dr. Gemma Gonzalez, AB Vista's research manager, developed the audience's understanding of the effect of stimbiotic supplementation and litter reutilisation on broiler chickens. She explained how the mode of action of a stimbiotic relies on the provision of xylo-oligosaccharides as an immediate compound for microbiota metabolism and xylanase to hydrolyse dietary arabinoxylans into small oligosaccharides utilised by beneficial bacteria in the gut.

Gomes also explained how even though the use of phytase in broiler diets is ubiquitous, there is still opportunity to optimise its usage through defining best dose rate via phytate-P analysis and taking advantage of the extra-P benefits of phytase supplementation, thereby reducing broiler production cost. He did this through the abstract "Effect of two commercially available phytases, supplemented at two different dose rates, on performance of broilers fed diets reduced in minerals, energy and amino acids."

The final abstract, "Effects of dietary Ca concentration on the performance of broiler chicks fed various sources of dietary phosphorous (P) with and without phytase supplementation, responses under slight P deficiency", was presented by Cooper Fritzlen from Virginia Tech who worked with AB Vista research director Dr. Mike Bedford on the study.

- AB Vista