PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY OF TURKEY-HEN REARING DURING THE WITHDRAWAL FROM MIXTURES FEEDS OF ANIMAL ORIGIN

Stanisław Szarek¹, Barbara Witak^2
1 Department of Economics and Agribusiness Organization, University of Podlasie, Siedlce, Poland
² Division of Poultry Breeding, University of Podlasie, Siedlce, Poland

ABSTRACT

Production efficiency of turkey-hen rearing in a farm in Poland during the withdrawal of meat and bone meal from feed mixtures was tested. The component was the main protein and amino acid source in feed mixtures for poultry and pigs until the end of October, 2003. Since 1^st November 2003 the applying of meat meals into feed mixtures was forbidden by the terms of pre-accession agreements. The decision was made due to the necessity to meet the EU requirements in feed industry of our country. The study lasted almost a year and showed that the withdrawal of animal meals as protein source from feed mixtures considerably worsened technical, economic and technical, and economic efficiencies in turkey-hen rearing. A substantial increase in production costs resulted in the decrease of profit and profitability ratio in the farm. The increase in feed conversion rate per 1 kg of body weight was the main factor that worsened the rearing efficiency. It meant that feed manufactures had a large problem to compose suitable feed mixtures, which would ensure feed requirements for turkeys and simultaneously would give satisfactory economic returns for producers.

Key words: turkey-hen, efficiency, farm production, production costs, animal meal.

INTRODUCTION

According to the European Union Directions (1999/20/EC of 20th March, 1999 and 1999/29/EC of 29^th April, 1999) feed producers in Poland have been under an obligation to supply meat and bone meal in concentrates by plant components since 1^st November, 2003. By then, plant components had been one of the main protein sources in feed mixtures for all animals.

Polish government under the pressure of the EU came to a decision to withdraw meat and bone meal from animal feeding. The ban in the EU countries has been compulsory since 1^st January, 2001 [19]. England, where the ban has been operative since 1988, was the first country that introduced the prohibition [6]. Till now cattle, goats and sheep in Poland have not been allowed to be fed with mixtures containing meat and bone meal. Since 1^st November, 2003 the suppression has been extended to pigs and poultry. The government has delayed the decision for many months because it could cause an increase in rearing costs (considering high price of soya bean) and a necessity to utilize animal offal used for preparing meals. In Poland experiments presenting production results after applying feed mixtures without meat meals have been carried out on broilers for a long time [7,15]. The latest studies showed that the exclusion of meat and bone meal from feed mixtures made rearing results of laying hens significantly worse [17].

Feed industry in Poland used 2.144.000 ton of protide feed components in 2003 [13], including 450.000 ton of animal meals. Country production made approximately 120.000 ton [9]. Feed manufactures are facing the feed production for poultry on the ground of local components, imported soybean meal and synthetic amino acids. Therefore, the problem arises whether the feed industry will overcome the difficulty so that poultry producers could attain satisfactory production results. The presented study proved that some feed manufactures found it impossible to work out mixture recipes that would come up to turkey producers expectations. Feed industry is facing a difficult task to produce mixtures, which would ensure low feed consumption and at the same time giving the turkey producers sufficient profits. Simultaneously, this is a signal for feed manufactures and scientific centres dealing with animal feeding to impart dynamism towards the introduction of mixtures without meat and bone meal, which would ensure the same production results as mixtures containing the meal. It is not an easy task because in many countries there are more and more groups that insist on the application of animal protein into mixtures for turkeys [12,16].

The aim of the study was to show production efficiency in a turkey farm while altering a component being the main protein source in feed mixtures. It was submitted a thesis that the exclusion of animal meals from feed mixtures would result in the decrease in the efficiency of turkey rearing. A complex analysis of efficiency in the field of technical, technical and economic, and economic efficiencies was carried out.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Turkey-hens of Big 6 crossbred purchased in the Kartzfehn firm (Germany) and reared in a farm located in Mazovia voivodship (Poland) were used as an experimental material. The producer entered into a contract with a meat plant and on the strength of the contract he received feed mixtures and turkey poults at a permanent price (270 EUR·t^-1 and 1.27 EUR/bird, respectively). The producer was also given a constant price for turkey on hoof (1.02 EUR·kg^-1). Moreover, bonus to the amount of 0.02 - 0.07 EUR per kilogram was added to the price. The experiment comprised 9 production cycles marked as c1 – c9. The beginning of the study was dated on May, 2003, the date of turkey poults insertion in cycle c1, and the study was completed on the day of selling all birds in cycle c9, i.e. October, 2004 (table 1). The birds were kept on deep litter, ensuring them management conditions according to Kartzfehn firm recommendations (2002/2003). In the first period the poults were placed in the brooder house of 1150 m², and then at the age of 6 weeks they were passed to one of poultry houses. The production was carried out in the poultry house of 1600 m² (poultry house A) and that of 2460 m² (poultry house B), which were able to place approximately 10.000 and 14.000 turkey-hens, respectively. In the farm gas heating was applied. The birds were reared in the intensive system in a closed building with controlled environment. In each cycle the birds were fed ad libitum with mixtures from the same feed manufacture, in accordance with 5-level feeding program. In cycle c1 and c2 meat and bone meal was used in mixtures as the main protein source. In cycle c3 feed mixtures without the meal composed 40% of all feeds. In cycle c4 the content of feed mixtures without the meal increased to 60%. In cycles c5 – c9, however, a plant component (soybean meal) was the only source of protein in mixtures. During the rearing period turkey-hen body weight, losses and cullings and feed intake were recorded. Production results, costs and economic efficiency of the rearing, including such economic indexes as: profitability ratio, cost ratio and profit ratio in each analysed cycle were calculated in order to verify the thesis.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

An average output of goods in a production cycle amounted to 113.700 EUR (table 2). The output of goods in one cycle gave 107.505 kg of turkey-hen meat, which made 54.1 kg of turkey on hoof per 1 m². The Kartzfehn firm stated that it was possible to obtain up to 52 kg of turkey on the hoof per 1 m² with the stocking density of 5.1 birds/m² (2002/2003). Results presented in the study proved that both the stocking density and turkey-hen weight on hoof per 1 m² exceeded the standards of the Kartzfehn firm. The turkey-hen weighed 8.9 kg (table 4), while the profit from selling 1 bird amounted to 9.5 EUR. The profit was by a half lower than in Germany, where a producer received 15.89 EUR per 1 bird weighed approximately 10 kg [1]. Similarly, the production cost of one turkey female amounted to 7.35 EUR in the tested farm, whereas in Germany it was higher and amounted to 13.29 EUR.

The cost of feed mixture was found to be the highest one in the total production costs and it tended to be on the level of 74% (table 3). During the rearing period the feed percentage in the production costs increased by 5.1%. Therefore, the percentage of the remaining production costs (poults purchase, veterinary costs for treatment and disinfection) decreased. However, it was worth mentioning that heating and electricity costs remained on the invariable level (table 2). An average economic return amounted to 9.554 EUR per cycle, which gave 57.324 EUR of net return per year and 4.777 EUR per month (table 2).

The losses and cullings in the tested farm amounted to approximately 6.8% (table 4). Large deviation from the average was associated with the fact that in cycles c4 and c6 the trait value was 10%. Empirical data showed that the most losses was stated in the last 3 weeks of rearing, and the bleeding and diarrhoea caused by poor quality of feed mixtures were the main reasons for the losses. The producer did not have any effect on the situation as he was obliged to purchase feed mixtures from a specified manufacture in accordance with the contract requirements. In spite of that the survivability in the rearing period (96 - 105 days) was on the satisfactory level and hesitated from 89.9 to 96.6%. The trait value approximated the results proved by other authors [4,14,18]. The increase in feed conversion rate per 1 kg of body weight together with the decrease in meat and bone meal content in feed mixtures was found (table 4). An average feed conversion rate per 1 kg of body weight in cycles c1 and c2 amounted to 2.54 kg (99 days of rearing), 2.79 kg (96 - 105 days) in cycles c3 and c4, and 2.86 kg (97 - 103 days) in cycles c5 - c9. Thus, considerable increase (by 17%) in feed conversion rate was proved. The obtained results in cycles c1 and c2 corresponded with the standards of the Kartzfehn firm, whereas feed conversion rate in cycles c3 - c9 tended to be larger than the firm norms required. Some scientific researchers found that turkeys of Big 6 crossbred should consume approximately 2.3 kg of feed mixtures per 1 kg of live weight gain [5,10]. Results stated in other experiments did not confirm to such a feed conversion level, which according to other researchers should amount to 2.74 kg [3] or 3.02 kg [14]. Thus, the results approximated the ones obtained in the tested farm. The feed conversion in cycles c5 – c9 was on the level comparable with the results presented by Puchajda [14]. The trait had a considerable effect on production efficiency. The increase in feed intake resulted in the increase in the production cost per 1 kg of turkey-hen on hoof and the cost hesitated from 0.90 EUR in cycles c1 and c2 to 0.91 EUR in cycles c5 - c9. The unit cost in cycles c5 - c6 was similar to the cost found in other papers [8]. The increase by 12.1% in the consumption of feed mixtures without meat and bone meal by turkey-hens in the poultry house A with an average stocking density about 10,000 birds (cycle c5) and the increase by 15.0% in the consumption of feed mixtures in the poultry house B with an average stocking density about 15,000 birds (cycle c6), in comparison with the consumption of feed mixtures containing the meal (cycles c1 and c2, respectively), caused the increase in production cost per 1 turkey-hen by 24%, the increase in production cost per 1 kg of turkey-hen on hoof by 16.6% respectively, whereas the decrease in economic return per 1 bird by 64.9%, and the decrease in profit per 1 working hour 64.4%, respectively. Indexes of technical and economic efficiency, such as profit per 1 bird and per 1 working hour showed the largest differentiation amongst all efficiency indexes (48.3 and 61.6%, respectively). Production results directly affected the economic efficiency. Cycles c5 - c9 were characterized by the lowest profitability (average 3.8%) and the largest cost ratio (average 94.2%). Large coefficient of variation -CV- (53.3%) was conditioned by a considerable drop of profitability in cycles c5 - c9.

The statistical analysis confirmed the fact that a large feed intake was a decisive factor, which determined the production efficiency. On the ground of the linear regression it was found that production cost per 1 turkey female depended on feed consumption per 1 kg of body weight.

The connection was characterized by a linear relationship defined by the formulae:

y(x) = -3.425 + 4.374x

where:
x - feed conversion per 1 kg of body weight
y - production cost per turkey-hen

The coefficient of determination between the parameters amounted to 81.9%. It had good reason for stating that feed conversion rate per 1 kg of body weight was the only factor that caused the increase in production costs of turkey-hen rearing.

Feed mixtures containing animal meals ensured low feed conversion per 1 kg of body weight of turkey females amounted to approximately 2.5 kg [11] and high production returns, which was found in the tested farm. When the level exceeded, the production efficiency considerably decreased in all fields. Results presented in the study explicitly showed that withdrawal of animal meals from feed mixtures could lead to increase in feed intake and decline of production efficiency. In the study the increase in consumption of feed mixtures without meat and bone meal by approximately 12.2% (cycles c5 - c6), in comparison with mixtures containing the meal (cycles c1 and c2), was found. It resulted in the increase in production cost per 1 turkey-hen by about 25%, the increase in production cost of 1 kg of turkey-hen on hoof by about 16.6%, while the decrease in economic return per 1 bird by about 64.9% and the decrease in economic return per 1 working hour by about 58.5%.

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