Chicken Growers Face Challenges
In six weeks a flock of yellow chicks blossom into fluffy white broilers fattened to approximately 3.8 pounds each. But, lots of things can go wrong in those six weeks. Although this sounds like a short period of time to go from egg to packing plant - the expenses for growers are rising.
1. Chickens must be kept warm in a cold climate. Energy costs are skyrocketing. Chicks can not regulate their own body temperature until they are 2 or 3 weeks old.
2. Stricter environmental regulations are making expansion difficult.
3. Sometimes the farmers are their own worst enemy - if they don't gage production to meet demand. A glut of chicken - drives prices down.
4. Growers are rewarded for growing bigger chickens for less money.
5. Growers have very little negotiating power for contracts with big processors.
6. Chicken growers must test soil and watch the runoff from chicken waste, making sure it does not leach into local water supplies causing taste or odor problems.
7. The price of corn, which is the main food for poultry, has skyrocketed. The push to use corn to produce ethanol is one of the reasons that corn's price shot up.
8. Soybeans, the other ingredient in chicken feed, also experienced a shortage due to the ethanol push. Soybean farmers planted corn instead of soybeans, knowing they could get better money for corn. This resulted in a shortage of soybean - which drove the prices of soybean up.
9. The extreme volatility in the price for feed led some chicken growers to report losses, others who could not offset the record-high corn and soybean costs went out of business.
10. The use of antibiotics in chicken feed became an issue in 1984 when a CDC study linked antibiotics in poultry feed to resistant bacteria. Antibiotics had been used as a growth promoter to help chickens gain weight faster. The FDA, CDC and USDA all agree that antibiotics are as critical in treating bacterial infections in animals as in humans. Government scientists also acknowledge the relationship between the use of antibiotics in food-producing animals and the emergence of drug resistant bacteria that can infect people.
Despite the industry's problems, poultry consumption is high across the nation. The average American eats 61 pounds of chicken a year. It is the most consumed meat in the United States. It would appear that the problems in the poultry industry will continue for a while. "(The problems) can seem to come on overnight," one chicken farmer said. "They're not going away overnight. I just hope our farms and farm families can ride it out."
How Natural Probiotics Can Help
Natural Probiotics Poultry Water + a probiotic additive specifically for use in poultry drinking water. The broilers treated with Natural Probiotics demonstrate increased daily weight gain, feed efficiency, and lower mortality. The addition of Natural Probiotics Water + also increased egg mass, egg weight, and egg size in poultry layers. Natural Probiotics maintained the poultry's normal intestinal microflora by the process of competitive exclusion. Poultry's metabolism was altered such that there was less bacterial enzyme activity and less ammonia production. The poultry are able to improve feed intake and digestion. Further, Natural Probiotics stimulate the immune system and neutralize enterotoxins.
The spore form of bacillus used in Natural Probiotics germinates rapidly in the intestines of poultry. It is hearty enough to withstand the journey through gastic acids and arrive healthy to the lower intestinal tract where it colonizes quickly and become metabolically active.
Growers once thought that all bacteria was harmful, but now it is common knowledge that a delicate symbiotic relationship exists between poultry and their digestive bacterial flora, which is important to the well being of man and poultry. Probiotics are an important alternative to antibiotics in that they do not result in the development and spread of super resistant strains of bacteria. Natural Probiotics can be economically used by poultry growers for promotion of growth, balancing of intestinal microflora, pathogen inhibition, immunomodulation and promoting meat quality – all while avoiding the expense and problematic use of antibiotics.
The increase in productivity in the poultry industry does not have to be accompanied by the appearance of a large variety of pathogens with resistance to antibiotics. Growers no longer need to use chemotheraputic agents that can result in costly clean up and bad PR. Natural Probiotics Products give farmers a way to prevent bacterial disease in their poultry as well as provide wholesome dressed-poultry meat that demonstrates to the public that growers are meeting the consumers desire for greener alternatives.
Raising turkeys for commercial sale is hard work. Turkeys are much harder to start than broiler chickens. The brooding period is more stressful on turkeys than chickens. Turkeys must remain on the farm for a longer period of time than chickens increasing the likelihood that some type of pathogen could infect the flock.
