A Superior Source of Organic Selenium

Evidence from over the last 20 years indicates that the form of dietary selenium is key to its efficiency. This has led to an industry-wide shift toward safer, organic forms of selenium and a move away from the traditional inorganic form of sodium selenite. Selenite’s high toxicity, pro-oxidant properties and bioavailability have caused the industry to question its use.

Sel-Plex® is Alltech’s proprietary organic form of selenium yeast. It is an excellent dietary source of selenium and is manufactured to mimic Mother Nature. The selenium from Sel-Plex is safer and better able to meet the higher requirements of livestock raised for rapid growth, reproductive performance and health.

A healthier environment for animals, farmers and communities

Animal rearing and organic waste processing are associated with odor emissions, which often impact the environmental health and quality of life both within and beyond the facilities.

Ammonia is one of the main odorous compounds found in the polluted air discharged from animal farms or compost bioreactors. The emission of ammonia is a natural process produced by the anaerobic decomposition of animal waste. However, chronic exposure may lead to respiratory stress and illnesses, especially in a confined environment.

Bioplex^® offers a range of trace minerals that provide mineral nutrition in a form as close to nature as possible. Bioplex minerals are trace minerals that are bound to amino acids and a range of peptides. They are easily absorbed and readily metabolized, optimizing animal performance. Bioplex trace minerals (zinc, manganese, copper, iron and cobalt*) are co-factors in enzymes critical to the animal’s defense system, growth and reproduction.

Trace mineral nutrition is key to maintaining health and animal food product quality. The Alltech Q+ (Quality Plus) program, the mineral quality control program unique to Bioplex trace minerals, guarantees quality, safety and performance in every batch. Alltech Q+ sets the industry standard, enabling Alltech to offer a global quality guarantee to customers using Bioplex trace minerals in more than 85 countries around the world.

Bioplex is part of the Alltech® Mineral Management program, which demonstrates that modern management of mineral nutrition can be achieved through the inclusion of trace minerals in the forms of Bioplex and Sel-Plex® while maintaining performance. This innovation is referred to as Total Replacement Technology ™ (TRT).

Bioplex:

• Offers higher bioavailability than inorganic minerals.
• Reduces concerns about negative mineral interactions.
• Supports mineral retention and tissue reserves.
• Reinforces mineral status, which leads to optimal overall health, immune status and reproductive function in the animal.
• Is readily absorbed, stored and utilized by the animal.
• Is supported by more than 21 years of research

*Not available in all regions

Bio-Mos^® plays a critical role in animal nutrition and production. A unique product derived from a selected strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast using a proprietary process developed by Alltech, Bio-Mos is incorporated into animal diets to support overall animal performance, effective during all phases of growth.

Bio-Mos:

• Is derived from a selected strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast using a proprietary process developed by Alltech.
• Supports overall animal performance.
• Has a market presence of over 20 years and is supported by over 734 trials and 114 peer-reviewed publications.

All species

• Enhances feed efficiency
• Contributes to immune system development
• Stimulates the natural defenses of the organism
• Reinforces the function of the digestive system
• Contributes to meat, egg and milk marketability

By clicking BUY NOW, you will be redirected to the Alltech Store checkout page. The Alltech Store ship products anywhere in the U.S., If you are interested in Bio-Mos for your region, then please fill out the contact form below and one of our Alltech representative will get back to you as soon as possible.

Fifty-three percent of consumers frequently wonder if the food they buy is safe, according to research conducted for the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance.

Food safety has become a top priority among poultry producers today because of its direct and significant effect on brand reputation. The effects of a food recall are always costly and can severely harm a brand's reputation if consumers lose trust.

For over two decades, the meat and poultry industries have been following the guidelines of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point, or HACCP, a management system for food safety put in place to address potential biological, chemical and physical contamination. This allows producers to identify possible hazards in order to take the necessary actions to reduce or eliminate the risk.

There is no silver bullet strategy that has the capability to address every potential threat along the production chain, so producers and plants use a variety of strategies at their critical control points.

Three steps to improve food safety

As stated on the National Chicken Council website, some ways that producers can improve their food safety include:

• The use of feed additives that can reduce the growth of potential microbial hazards.
• Approved rinses to kill any surviving bacteria.
• Metal detectors to make sure physical contaminants are not found in a product.

In addition to food safety systems, producers also need to make sure that their consumers understand proper food handling practices. Consumers should be made aware of the proper way to clean, prepare, cook and chill raw agricultural products in order to further reduce the risk of food-borne illnesses.

West Liberty Foods, a leading supplier of sliced meats in the U.S., understands that the concepts of food safety and consumer trust are crucial to success. The company’s chairman, Paul Hill, explained its strategy in a recent Alltech feature story. Learn more about how a brand like West Liberty Foods approaches food safety by clicking on the link below.

http://stories.alltech.com/west-liberty-foods-our-brand-is-food-safety.html

If you have read any of Alltech’s other blog posts on mycotoxins, you know the many hazardous effects mycotoxins may have on livestock animals. In poultry production alone, mycotoxins have been linked to mouth lesions, yellow livers, gizzard erosions and poor gut integrity. Many of the world’s biggest poultry integrators pay very close attention to their grain and feed quality because of the effects these challenges may have on poultry health and on profit margins.

When it comes to organic poultry production, however, the more stringent regulations also present unique challenges.

First, there is the challenge of supply and demand. According to a survey conducted in 2014 by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, sales of U.S. organic products have increased 72 percent since 2008. Demand for organic and non-GMO broiler chickens, turkeys and eggs is also strong and is expected to double in the next decade. In response to the increase in demand, local producers have been expanding their organic and non-GMO production. A 2016 article from WattAgNet.com summarizes the rapid growth that organic poultry has had. From 2000 to 2014, organic broiler production grew by 96 percent, organic layer flocks grew by 89 percent and turkey production grew by 35 percent.

Even though the poultry industry has been very quick to respond to consumer demands, the supply of certified organic and non-GMO grains has been slower to react.

The U.S. is the largest corn producer in the world, but in 2011 it was estimated that organic corn represented only 0.26 percent of production. Today, about 4 percent of food sales are organic while only 0.5 percent of U.S. farm acreage is dedicated organic. With a limited supply, buyers are often forced to accept higher levels of broken kernels and imperfections in their grain.

The case for grain quality

Grains with broken kernels and imperfections usually contain higher levels of molds and mycotoxins. Most of the mycotoxin-producing species of molds are soil-born fungi, which can survive and remain in fields for long periods of time. With modern agricultural practices such as no-till methods, incidences of fungal contamination appear to be increasing. The presence of corn stems and infected ears remaining on the soil surface from one year to another may serve as a source of inoculums, contributing to the increased incidence of contaminated grains (Mora and Moreno, 1984).

According to Duarte et al. (2008), fungicides can reduce the incidence of Fusarium molds in corn grain, but the use of fungicides is not allowed when growing organic corn. 

Managing a hidden mycotoxin threat

To protect our food chain, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration imposes limits for mycotoxin levels in food and feed. This was highlighted in a 2016 alert by the National Grain and Feed Association to remind everyone of the acceptable levels. To meet the standards of organic production as well as these limits, organic producers are limited in terms of mycotoxin risk management and gut health prevention tools.

Management strategies and the implementation of a thorough program are necessary to prevent exposure to mycotoxins. Checking grain quality by utilizing industry-approved standards to collect samples and submitting them to a high-standard testing laboratory is a good start, followed by routine maintenance of feed mills to eliminate possible contamination in the milling process. Certified organic mycotoxin control agents in the diets should also be utilized to help prevent or offset the impacts mycotoxins can have on overall performance.

To learn more about Alltech’s program for managing mycotoxins, visit www.knowmycotoxins.com.

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In the United States and Canada, the poultry industry’s standard performance measurement is the feed conversion ratio (FCR). Calculating FCR is as simple as taking the total amount of feed consumed by the flock and dividing it by the amount of weight gained or the number of eggs produced. In other words, FCR equals input divided by output. For broiler producers, an FCR of 1.6 means that their chickens gain 1 kilogram of weight for every 1.6 kilograms of feed consumed. The lower the FCR, the more efficient animals are at converting feed into food.

Since the 1980s, poultry producers have been able to reduce their feed conversion ratios from producing a bird weighing 2 kilograms in 70 days with an FCR of 2.5 to a bird weighing the same in 29 days with an FCR of 1.5 today. This means that fewer grains are being used to produce more meat and eggs. The industry made this leap using two key strategies: genetic improvements and the inclusion of exogenous enzymes.

Exogenous enzymes allow producers to get more energy, phosphorus and amino acids from their diets, and the international unit for measuring enzyme activity is the katal. The katal represents 1 mol of substrate per second; however, the most valued unit for comparative purposes in the animal industry is the amount of the enzyme in milligrams needed to catalyze the reaction of a particular substrate, releasing 1 micromol of a final product in one minute.

It is far more difficult for producers to determine the effect a particular enzyme will have on their flock’s efficiency. Most producers will need to run field trials in order to see how the inclusion of a particular enzyme will impact their FCR. These trials can be complicated, due to the number of variables involved, and they can be very expensive, too. Being able to measure how effective a particular diet is at providing nutrients for digestion before it is fed to the animals can give a great advantage to poultry producers.

Tools like Alltech True Check™ in vitro screening can allow producers to do just that. True Check simulates poultry digestion in the lab utilizing samples of feed. This tool mimics the real life conditions of the animal’s digestive system and shows producers the amount of nutrients that are being released for digestion. With True Check, producers can do side-by-side comparisons of multiple feeding strategies and choose the one that will minimize their FCR and improve their flock’s performance the most.   

Measuring and projecting performance allows poultry producers to choose the feeding strategy that reduces their feed costs and, as a result, gives them the best chances for increasing profitability. After all, the industry can only improve what it can measure.

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