PREFECT Trial - A Commercial Pullet Replacement Trial (31/08 - 14/12 2000)

Objective
This trial was carried out by one of the United Kingdom's premier poultry producers. The trial was set up to determine whether the Agil product PREFECT can be cost effective in maintaining bird growth performance whilst reducing the specification of the grower diet. The trial was carried out during the last quarter of 2000 at a production site in South East England.


Trial Set-Up
24720 Hy-line birds were randomly separated (50:50) into 2 groups and housed in identical barn housing.

House 1 housed the control birds - 12360 birds.
House 2 housed the PREFECT treatment birds -12360 birds.

Up to week 5 of the trial both groups of birds received feed of an identical formulation except the treatment birds had PREFECT added at 3 kg/tonne "over the top".

From 5 weeks into the trial, until completion at 15 weeks, the control birds received a "Super Booster" feed, formulated to achieve target performance. The treatment group received a feed formulated to a lower specification, and lower cost, but continued to receive PREFECT at 3 kg/tonne. Table 1 shows key specification differences in these feed formulations.

Table 1: Control & Treatment Feed Specifications - From 5 to 15 weeks.

Nutrient
Grower + PREFECT
Super Booster Grower
Protein
15.50
17.00
Energy(MJ/kg)
11.30
11.75
Lysine %
0.65
0.79
Methionine %
0.32
0.38
Oil
2.70
3.00

At the time of the trial the cost difference between formulations including the cost of PREFECT was around £8.00 Sterling/Tonne higher for the control formulation.

Results


Over the trial period there was very little difference in the cumulative mortality between either the trial or control groups.

Bodyweights were similar for both groups throughout the trial period.
Both groups were slightly ahead of target bodyweights.

The Prefect group consumed less feed per bird to achieve the same weight as the control group receiving the "Super Booster" feed.

Conclusion

This trial clearly demonstrates that it is possible to achieve excellent performance in terms of mortality, bodyweight gain and feed consumption when PREFECT is included in the feed of pullet replacement birds.

The trial also demonstrated when PREFECT is included it is possible to reduce the nutritional specification of a feed in a highly cost effective way, whilst at the same time maintaining bird performance.

In this trial the cost difference of feeds represented an overall saving £8.00 Sterling /Tonne when the standard high specification feed was compared to the lower specification trial feed.

Additional cost savings were made because of the lower feed consumption per bird in the PREFECT group. The cost differences between formulations at the time of the trial and the additional saving due to reduced feed consumption (5.144 kg versus 5.271 kg) would represent £12.19 Sterling/12000 birds raised to 15 weeks of age.