Broiler Growth Model
The EFG Broiler Growth Model version 5.1 is a unique scientific and management tool for poultry nutritionists, geneticists and managers – in short, anyone concerned with technical developments in broiler production.
The model simulates the growth of a single bird taking account of genetic parameters, diet composition and feeding programme, the environment, stocking density and other factors which may affect the outcome of production decisions in practice. Growth, feed intake, body composition and yield, and a variety of production indices are calculated in each simulation. The model also carries out basic economic calculations to guide commercial decisions.
EFG Broiler Growth Model and Broiler Nutrition Optimiser have been upgraded
Major upgrades of the EFG Broiler Growth Model and Broiler Nutrition Optimiser have recently been completed. Apart from a fresh new user interface a number of interesting and useful features have been added, many of which have been requested by our users. These include the following:
- Users may specify maximum and minimum daily temperatures, as well as atmospheric pressure and typical wet and dry bulb readings for the locality, from which the hourly maximum and minimum temperatures and hourly relative humidity (RH) are calculated by the model. With 24 cycles being simulated per day a more realistic assessment of the effect of temperature on food intake and performance is obtained than when a single, fixed daily temperature and RH are specified.
- Previously the comfort temperature was calculated as the mean of the maximum and minimum temperatures at which the bird would be capable of growing at its potential, given its state and the composition of the feed offered. This has been changed, and the comfort temperature is now calculated as the highest temperature at which the bird will be able to grow at its potential.
- Diurnal light dark cycles may be specified by the user, which are taken into account in determining the maintenance requirements of the simulated broilers.
- The feed offered to the birds each day may be produced by blending two complete feeds or an ingredient and a balancer, and the effects of changing the feed blend are now simulated.
- Following from the blending feature in the Broiler Growth Model, feed blends may also be used in the Broiler Nutrition Optimiser. In this case, if a feed is blended, only the first feed will be optimised, with the balancer remaining unchanged.
- Changes have been introduced to the inputs and appearance of the revenue section. Downgrades may now be included in the calculation.
- The cost per kg gain is now calculated and may be used as an objective function in the optimiser.
- Responses may now be plotted against age, body weight and cumulative food intake.
- In the optimiser we have created a facility to enable users to modify some responses themselves using linear regressions. For example the effects of changes in dietary lipid content on pellet quality, or the effect of dietary protein content on % downgrades can be included in the optimisation procedure. These user-defined relationships give more freedom for users to take account of their own in-house- or published data not presently included in the model.
- WinFeedDataBaseManager has been updated.