Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
13
A Model to Optimize Broiler
Productivity
R.M. Gous*
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa
Abstract
Optimizing the feeding of commercial broilers is made difficult because of the many interacting factors
influencing their growth and food intake. Not all broilers are the same, nor are they housed in the same
environments, and the costs of feeding and the revenue derived from the sale of the product differs
markedly from one locality to another. When making decisions about how to maximize an economic
index, such as margin/m
2
/year or breast meat yield in a commercial broiler operation, all of these inter-
acting factors should be considered simultaneously. This is now possible, using optimization tech-
niques, but only where food intake can be accurately predicted.
The basis of such an optimization process is that specifications for feeds and feeding schedules
are passed to a feed formulation program, which produces the least-cost feeds and passes these on to
a broiler growth model that, in turn, evaluates the suggested feeding programme. By following certain
rules the optimizer continues to alter the specifications of the feeds and/or feeding programme until
no improvement can be made in the objective function. Without an accurate prediction of the amount
of food that a given broiler will consume in the given environment, such an optimization process is
bound to fail. The broiler growth model described here predicts food intake accurately under most
circumstances that would be experienced in a commercial broiler operation, making it possible now
to optimize the feeding programme of commercial broilers under a wide range of biological, environ-
mental and economic circumstances, using many different objective functions.
In this chapter a method of predicting food intake, and hence the rate of growth of the body and
its components in broilers is described, and the basis of the optimization process that determines the
most profitable feeding programme for broilers is outlined. Some examples are given of the effect of
changing ingredient prices, revenue and the objective function on the amino acid composition of the
resultant optimum feeds and on the optimum feeding programme.
Introduction
as maximizing profit for the enterprise. The
process of decision making is one that every-
one practises every day: identify the prob-
lem; evaluate alternative courses of action;
choose the most appropriate on some or other
basis; implement the decision; evaluate the
Commercial broiler production is all about
making decisions, and then implementing
those decisions, the objective in most cases
being to move towards an optimum such
