Nuscience Group, a member of the Royal Agrifirm Group, is launching Q-prove, a brand new product to cope with the woody breast syndrome in broiler chickens.

Although it’s not a threat to human health, woody breast results in significant financial losses for poultry farmers, integrators and slaughterhouses. With Q-prove, Nuscience is now able to deal with this problem and reduce the percentage of affected birds substantially. It is the first and unique solution for woody breast syndrome in the animal feed industry, the company said.

Woody breast syndrome is a serious problem for poultry husbandry. It can affect broiler chickens, making the meat hard and chewy and rendering the animals unmarketable. The main cause of woody breast is thought to be the high growth rate and high breast meat yield.

After conducting major field trials in Europe and South America, Nuscience developed an effective solution for this problem: Q-prove. The product can lower the incidence of woody breast by reducing oxidative stress and supplying more oxygen to the cells. With Q-prove, the muscle cells are able to grow very fast without any meat loss.

The first signs of muscle degradation can be found at an early life stage. Therefore it’s important to start using a high dosage of Q-prove in the starter feed and gradually reducing the dosage as the animals grow. Trials have shown that at a higher age (around 42 days) the incidence of severe woody breast can go up to 20%. In that case, adding Q-prove can reduce this number to about 2.5%.

Helping the poultry farmers who are facing a lot of problems with woody breast will be the first priority for Nuscience, especially in markets such as the U.S., Brazil and Europe. Q-prove will be manufactured in the new Nuscience factory in Drongen, Belgium, and will be exported worldwide from this location.