Egg Producers Benefit from Extruded Soybeans and ExPress® Meal
The US and Canadian egg industries are major suppliers of high quality protein in the form of shell and liquid eggs for consumer and food processors’ convenience. In addition the restaurant industry has profited by offering unique egg entrees to satisfy their customers.
Over the years, egg producers have generally been paid by egg size, with premiums paid for large eggs or heavier case weights. Typically a chicken starts her laying cycle with small (pullet eggs), then gradually produces larger eggs as the laying cycle nears 100 days of laying. There are basic tools used to create larger eggs earlier in the laying cycle, depending upon market conditions. One is to increase the energy content of the diet by adding fats, or another is to feed a full fat extruded soybean meal or an oil meal that is extruded followed by mechanical pressing (ExPress®) which creates soybean meal with some residual soybean oil.
Exciting results occurred at an Eastern United States farm in 2005 and 2006 when a partially defatted soybean meal (ExPress®) achieved a case weight of 45 lbs. during the 6th and 7 week of lay, while the other 5 flocks (fed a conventional soybean meal and animal fat diet) took 3-6 weeks longer to achieve the 45 lb. case weight. These were results compared with the farm’s historical performance of the same breed of birds with a conventional corn-soybean meal diet. More improvement was also seen in the 9th week with the flock achieving a 47 lb. case weight, while the 5 flocks took another 6 weeks of production to achieve the 47 lb. case weight.
The egg producer clearly benefited financially by producing larger eggs over the first 25 weeks of production. Egg producers have also seen positive results by feeding extruded full fat soybean meal for the 1st 100 days of production and received benefits such as a higher total percentage of lay than those fed conventional soybean meal or roasted soybeans. Feed/day was 5% lower with extruded full fat soybean meal, and feed fed per egg produced was reduced 8.6% from the other control diets.
With historical production costs always being challenged by high feed costs, feeding extruded/expelled or extruded soybeans can increase net profitability for egg producers. Using these chemical-free oilseed processes and strategically incorporating the all-natural meal can be a solid benefit to egg producers. To learn more about these practices or to learn how you can make quailty ExPress Meal, contact your local Insta-Pro Intl Sales Director.
