Symposium: Fundamentals of Feed Efficiency: Animal to Genome

The measurement of feed efficiency in the broiler industry is one of pri­ mary measurements used to monitor and evaluate broiler performance. It has a significant impact on the competitiveness in the marketplace as nearly 70% of the cost of raising a commercial broiler is feed. Although feed costs may shift up or down, it will always represent the highest input cost in commercial poultry production. Feed efficiency has improved dramatically since the establishment of the commercial chicken busi­ ness. Due to significant improvements primarily in genetic selection and nutrition, growth rates have increased (resulting in higher body weights in fewer growth days) as has feed efficiency. Market weights of broilers have nearly doubled while feed conversions have dropped 20 points or more. Feed costs, however, have steadily increased the past several years due to supply, export pressure and the production of ethanol from corn. The loss of certain feed additives traditionally used to support feed conversion and a small but increasing interest by consumers to purchase chickens raised without antibiotics have resulted in an industry wide loss of efficiency and added to production costs. Although feed efficiency will continue to improve through genetic selection, nutrition and management, an effort to develop new strategies to manage produc­ tion efficiency that may focus on intestinal physiology (e.g., lowering intestinal inflammation, manipulating microbial environment or even at the cellular level) is the new frontier that will bring technologies to further improve production efficiency in the poultry industry.