By: Stacie Crowder, Ph.D., director of additive sales and technical innovation with Fortiva

In today’s agricultural landscape, feed additives have evolved from being just “additives” to critical ingredients for animal performance and profit drivers for operations. Yet, the approach to feed additives has often taken a “last in, first out” mentality, leaving opportunities to drive efficiency and profitability on the table.

Additives are a broad feed ingredient category that can impact many different functions in the animal, including feed conversion, gut and digestive health, immune function and more. When used strategically, they can deliver measurable improvements in animal health, performance and overall return on investment (ROI).

Here’s how nutritionists can help make additives work most effectively and efficiently when formulating diets and how working collaboratively with producers can unlock even more opportunities.  

1 . Find opportunities to provide more value

Today’s feed rations must do more than simply meet animals’ nutritional needs. We have the guidelines as a baseline for how much protein, amino acids and vitamins are needed in the diet. Formulating a diet that goes beyond that to impact animal health, performance and efficiency will provide more value to your clients and demonstrate a strong partnership for their business.

To help deliver strong results, it’s important to uncover and investigate the challenges a farm is facing.

Ensure you are at the table for farm meetings to hear first-hand and brainstorm solutions together. Once you’ve identified the issues, concerns and opportunities, you can explore the right ingredients to help deliver strong results.

2 . Work backward to find the solution

When it comes to feed additives, it’s important to understand the mode of action and the components to find the most efficient and effective solution. In other words, what specifically is the ingredient doing within the animal?

Every physiological response has a trigger, or receptor, in the gut lining of the animal. By knowing the physiological response you want to activate and which specific molecule will turn on that receptor, you can select the ingredient with the right molecules to achieve the preferred response.

For example, post-weaning performance in pigs, specifically early intakes, is critical to deliver technologies to help gut health and intestinal development. Producers can look for technologies that drive intake or address gut barrier function to support nutrient digestion.

A targeted, intentional approach and consistent response with a feed additive begins with focusing on the desired animal response and working backward to find the right ingredient designed to impact a specific metabolic process.

3 . Make sure every ingredient pulls its weight

There are only so many dollars and so much space in the diet. Every ingredient is under scrutiny. And when it comes to ROI, 1+1=3 doesn’t cut it anymore. That equation must equal 4 or 5. Every ingredient must box outside of its weight class in the returns it brings.

Ask yourself, where can I strategically use ingredients to provide a bigger return? How can I get more out of staple ingredients like corn or soybean meal?

Technologies such as medium chain fatty acids (MCFAs), enzymes or probiotics can also help you get more from the ration and make the producer’s dollar work harder for them.

Initiate conversations with the producer about what ROI looks like for their operation. Is it income over feed costs? Income over feed and facilities? Cost per pound of gain or days on feed?

Challenges are sometimes silent thieves stealing away energy or nutrient resources from growth to gut repair or maintenance. For example, you can’t visually see good gut health in young animals. But if gut health is poor, you’ll likely start seeing scours followed by increased treatment and medication costs and decreased animal performance. Once you start seeing these types of problems visually, it will require a higher investment to fix them.

Additives aren’t a one-size-fits-all approach

By asking the right questions, working backward to pinpoint solutions and ensuring every ingredient delivers optimal ROI, you can create an efficient, effective ration that is tailored to your client’s specific needs.

Whether tackling health challenges or raising benchmarks, strategic use of feed additives can transform challenges into opportunities. Learn more about ingredients for impact at fortivaimpact.com.