Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
the ideal protein profile that they desire to
use. On the other hand, other nutrients such
as minerals or vitamins are kept constant in
the diets, ignoring their effects and inter-
actions with other nutrients as levels of diet-
ary energy and amino acids are modified.
In reviewing the history of computerized
model development to determine poultry nu-
trient needs or estimate responses of birds
to those nutrient levels, it can be observed
that many of these tools have been aban-
doned without being extensively used or
even fairly evaluated by the poultry indus-
try. For instance, at present models such as
FORTEL™ (Emmans, 1981, 1989, 1994; Em-
mans and Fisher, 1986), CHICKOPT™ (Hur-
witz
et al
., 1978; Talpaz
et al
., 1986, 1991),
IGM
®
(Harlow and Ivey, 1994), OmniPro
®
II (Fancher, 1999; Ivey, 1999) or the ones
proposed by Pesti
et al
. (1986), Liebert
et al
.
(2000), King (2001) and Guevara (2004) are
not currently used by nutritionists or they are
not presently available to the industry.
currently in poultry modelling come from
private companies, and there is very little
work that is currently being developed in
public institutions.
EFG Software
EFG Software (
www.efgsoftware.net/
) has
developed models for broilers, turkeys,
broiler breeders and swine. EFG Software
also offers the Reading Model for table egg
layers within its products (Fisher
et al
., 1973).
These models and their applications will be
explained in detail in this topic (see Fisher,
Chapter
1,
this volume and Gous, Chapters
3
and
13,
this volume). The broiler growth
model has been the one with the most evalu-
ations or applications published (Oviedo-
Rondón
et al
., 2002b,c; Gutierrez
et al
., 2008;
Chrystal, 2009).
Aviagen and LIDM development of models
for application in the poultry industry
Models Used in Commercial Poultry
Production and Nutrition
The poultry breeding company Aviagen Inc.
(Huntsville, Alabama, USA), cooperating
with LIDM Software Systems, Ltd (Israel),
has been developing several tools to model
poultry growth and behaviour in an effort to
provide poultry companies with informa-
tion targeted to improving the efficiency of
poultry meat and hatching egg production.
Aviagen has embraced biological models as
a means to enhance their technical guidance
efforts with their client base. Biological models
are helping Aviagen to better understand
the optimal nutrient requirements for differ-
ent genotypes under varying economic con-
ditions.
With the vision of creating models for
commercial application in the poultry in-
dustry, Bryan Fancher, Hovav Talpaz and
Michael Cohen have worked closely to-
gether since 2000 to pursue this objective.
Further development and implementation
of these systems continues with the com-
bined efforts of Fancher and his colleagues
at Aviagen and Talpaz and Cohen at LIDM
Software Systems, Ltd. The following list
A few groups are, however, currently devel-
oping and using models for decision mak-
ing by the poultry industry. Among these
modeller groups, we can spotlight the work
done by EFG Software from Natal, South
Africa (Gous, 2006, 2007, 2012), Aviagen
(Alabama, USA) with LIDM Software from
Israel (De Beer, 2009, 2010; Talpaz
et al
.,
2013); Fee2Gain (Frank Ivey, Missouri, USA);
Roland Consulting (Economic Feeding and
Management of Commercial Leghorns), Car-
gill Animal Nutrition (Minnesota, USA) and
Nutreco (Canada) modelling divisions; Da-
nisco Animal Nutrition (UK); and INRA
(France). Companies such as AGROINFO TI
(São Paulo, Brazil); CyberAgra (Virginia, USA);
M-Tech Systems (Georgia, USA); UniSoma
(São Paulo, Brazil); and The Wala Group
(Minnesota, USA) offer business models and
other data analysis tools that generate math-
ematical models for decision making in
poultry enterprises. It is relevant to mention
that the majority of developments observed
