How Cargill innovations are improving livestock nutrition

Cargill Animal Nutrition (CAN) is at the forefront of livestock nutrition. With access to the latest innovations, its UK team brings advanced and reliable nutritional developments to UK cattle, pig, poultry and sheep producers.

Improved feed efficiency and sustainability are the key drivers for CAN; and these are the areas that are central to the success of our livestock businesses.

“We maintain close links with our industry and make sure UK producers reap the full benefit of our research and development,” says Cargill UK’s commercial director Norman Downey.

“We are constantly building on the strong foundations of our local expertise while reaping the advantages of pioneering and innovative developments in animal nutrition that span across the globe.

Our specialist teams here in the UK – in ruminant, pig and poultry nutrition, are working with distributors, feed manufacturers, and producers to bring global developments to a local level and to benefit UK livestock businesses.”

CAN brings new innovations to UK producers

The latest CAN developments in the dairy sector include a range of Equaliser^® rumen buffers including specific products to help to maximise feed efficiency from high fibre forages and cereal-based forages.

Equaliser^® CoolCow – new to the UK market – is designed to keep cow performance on track when humidity, temperature or, more typically a combination of both, create a heat stress environment.

Producers can see dips in performance, intake, feed efficiency and fertility that can be minimised by including enhanced feed additives in the ration.

Advanced young animal diets

Advanced young animal diets are an important part of CAN’s portfolio. Its heifer rearing programme and accurately designed rations are designed to keep growth on target and to achieve a 24-month age at first calving.

The Shepherdess^® lamb feeding system and milk replacer are recognised as a vital helping hand during lambing on many UK units; providing a reliable and labour-saving route to raising orphan or surplus lambs.

In the pig nutrition sector, CAN has pioneered new developments in piglet nutrition. Its most recent Neopigg^® Max precision starter feeds take piglet nutrition to a new level.

New technology has allowed a detailed profiling of raw materials so we can understand their nutrient availability and interaction within feed.

From this, and with a knowledge of UK pig genetics and systems, we now offer diets with a unique combination ingredients and formulations to take piglets, step-by-step, through the target-led rearing process.

Results from extensive UK farm trials show improvements in growth rates of up to 21% in the first 12 days post weaning where Neopigg^® Max has been included, compared with former Cargill standard diets.

Improved nutrition for growers

CAN’s expertise continues through the growing stages. The feed additive ConverMax^® was introduced in the UK early in 2019 to improve feed conversion and promote well-being in pigs through their finishing period.

Developed by Cargill’s global research team, its unique blend of botanical extracts combined with a high-quality mineral source have been shown to improve the feed conversion ratio of pigs by 0.1 point across a range of rearing systems.

This improvement has resulted in an increased average profitability of £2.38 per pig, and a return on investment of more than 3:1 on average, based on UK prices and depending on feeding strategy and farm system.

In addition, the trials recorded a lower than usual incidence and severity of skin lesions and second grade carcasses.

Innovation through partnerships

Cargill’s expertise is derived through its inhouse innovation centres, and also through partnerships with research centres and specialist companies such as the Austrian-based phytogenics company Delacon.

Delacon is the global leader in phytogenics and, backed with many years of intensive research, it has turned these plant-derived products into more mainstream use. Working with Cargill, Delacon has developed the phytogenic feed additive

Biostrong^® 510 for poultry. This additive includes essential oils, bitter substances, saponins and pungent substances; all phytogenic ingredients that enhance the performance of broilers and laying hens.

The inclusion of Biostrong^® 510 in poultry diets has been shown to improve nutrient digestibility in broilers and laying hens, reduce ammonia and greenhouse gas emissions and improve body weight in broilers and egg weight and mass in laying hens.

It brings new opportunities for UK poultry producers to improve bird performance, and to take a step in the right direction in reducing environmental impact.

With flock performance and poultry health being inextricably linked, CAN offers UK producers the SolviTec^® range of nutritional products to support bird health, enhance performance and reduce production losses.

“Taking the best of the Cargill knowledge and research base and customising it, through products and technical support here in the UK, we can look to improve the efficiency and sustainability of the UK meat, egg and milk production industries.”

Norman Downey, commercial director UK