Indonesia Animal Feed Market: How Feed Supplements Keep Livestock Healthy and Productive
Why Animals Need More Than Just Regular Feed
Animal diet differs from a human diet. Just like we sometimes burn a candle to the wax and need to support our diet with vitamins, we need to perform the same support with animals.
Regular feed offers energy, but may not contain every essential nutrient an animal needs to develop and perform optimally. This is where feed supplements help, serving as small nutrient boosters to fill gaps in an animal’s daily dietary needs.
The increased attention to animal nutrition is influencing the animal feed industry. It is expected that the “Indonesia Animal Feed Market” will grow consistently at a rate of 5.3% per year until 2032. Farmers’ increased focus on feed quality is based on the correlation between animal health and productivity.
Let’s delve deeper into how feed supplements help animals.
What are Animal Feed Supplements?
Supplements are additives that are mixed into an animal's food. These are beneficial to cows, chickens, fish, pets, and more. Animal feed supplements provide vitamins, minerals, proteins, and amino and fatty acids that may be missing in regular feed. These provide simple nutritional “power-ups” and come in the form of powders, pellets, and liquids, and help to keep animals healthy.
Why is Regular Animal Feed Sometimes Inadequate?
Animals require the same balanced nutrition that humans do. However, just like humans, the quality of food given to the animals can vary depending on seasons, soil, and storage conditions. Sometimes the food can be missing key micro and macronutrients.
Calcium deficiencies are bad for any animal, this means more brittle bones, and in the case of cows, less milk. Chickens lacking in vitamins often don't lay as many eggs, and protein deficiencies in younger animals means slower growth.
These issues can be solved with the addition of the right supplements.
How Feed Supplements Improve Animal Health
• Supplements only do their job to support health in simple, yet effective ways.
• They strengthen the immune system so animals get sick less often.
• They build stronger bones and teeth through higher levels of calcium and phosphorus.
• The right mix of probiotics improve digestion so animals can absorb the nutrients better.
• The addition of the right mix of proteins and amino acids supports growth in younger animals.
• The right supplements help animals live longer and remain active, while improving their appetite.
• How Supplements Boost Animal Performance
• Keeping animals healthy is important, but does not mean cutting back on the opportunities present by animal supplementation.
• Healthy animals can do more, with their performance.
• Meat animals reach their target weight faster on less food and more efficiently.
• Dairy cows can produce higher volumes of milk on their fed amount.
• Hens can be fed to reach more eggs.
• Breeding animals also show better fertility and reproduction success.
Overall more productivity can be pulled while hitting health targets, improving the wellbeing of the animals which is often in an ignored aspect of the animal husbandry.
Final Remarks: Increased Nutrition Leads to Increased Outcomes
Although protein feed additives may appear to be relatively small to add to a daily diet, their value is substantial. They help to fortify animals, enhance their growth and foster long-term health.
Just like humans need a balanced diet and vitamin supplements, animals need complete nutrition too. When farmers make a commitment to feed additives, everyone wins. This includes the animals, the farm and the food value chain.