A winning strategy for innovation and excellence: Stay relevant, believe in yourself and love what you do. 

Dr. Martin Zuidhof, Professor, Poultry Systems Modeling and Precision Feeding, U of A Faculty of ALES and AFNS, has weathered skepticism, negativity, setbacks, and challenges to develop a feeding system that could revolutionize the way broiler breeders are fed and studied. “Believe in yourself,” states Zuidhof. “People might laugh you out of the room and it might seem that what you’re doing isn’t all that important but if you believe there is value in what you are doing, there will be value.” Read on to learn about the development of the Precision Feeding System, the current state of the broiler breeder industry and Zuidhof’s philosophies around teaching, staying relevant and enjoying life.

Zuidhof grew up on a pig farm southeast of Lacombe, AB. with a 130-sow farrow to finish operation. Martin loved to tinker with the machines and fix things, leading his father to suggest he become an engineer. Although he did not formally follow that path, his interest in physics and how things work has complemented his career.

He completed a general science degree as an undergrad, majoring in biology with a minor in physics. 

“I had a passion for how stars are formed, and quantum physics and I still love it to this day,” said Zuidhof.” 

After completing his undergrad degree, Martin decided that he wanted to do a postgraduate degree and was introduced to Dr. Frank Robinson (Professor and Special Advisor to the Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, Life and Environmental Sciences (ALES) – Dean’s Office) by his summer employer, Dr. John Feddes, a now retired professor in the U of A department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science(AFNS). 

“I met Frank and 15 minutes later I was signed up for a master’s program,” laughed Zuidhof.  “I was Frank’s student from that moment on, and I still am.” 

“I often say a good teacher can change the trajectory of your life. Frank Robinson was that for me.” 

After completing his Masters, Martin took a job with the government of Alberta as a poultry specialist and worked there for seven years before starting his PhD, eventually joining the U of A faculty of ALES. Martin is a highly regarded teacher and when asked about his core values and philosophies around teaching, enjoying yourself is a high priority.

“Number one, if you are not having fun, you are probably doing the wrong thing,” he stated. “What’s important to me is to be relevant and to enjoy what I’m doing.” 

He is a fan of experiential learning which is being promoted at the U of A. 

“Learning by doing is the best way to learn. When you are teaching, it’s the stories that really inspire people. Experiential learning fosters this through hands-on lived experience. “

Precision Feeding System

While working on his master’s degree, Zuidhof became curious about the difficulties around allocating feed for broiler breeders. It seemed obvious that if the birds were weighed and then fed accordingly, getting them to their desired weight should be easy. At that time, birds were weighed once a week, and if the correction factor was off, it was easy to get off target. But, he reasoned, if you shorten that feedback loop, you could be very precise. 

“I kept working through that problem in my mind over and over, running into new problems, coming back to it,” explained Zuidhof. “Once I started talking about the process that was forming in my head, you wouldn’t believe how much negative feedback I got. There was very strong skepticism not only from industry but colleagues too.”

“But I was passionate about the idea and was able to convince them that, for a small investment we could leverage a substantial investment by a funder and, after five or six years of talking about it, they finally agreed to let me give it a shot.” Precision feeding was born.

Zuidhof’s Precision Feeding System controls individual feed intake in group-housed chickens. Each broiler breeder hen has an RFID chip and can enter the feeding stations multiple times a day but is only provided feed according to whether or not her body weight deviates from the daily pre-programmed target weight. In addition to its practical commercial potential, the precision feeding system also facilitates collection of high quality research data.

There are challenges, including training the birds how to initially use the feeding system, but once they figure it out, it works like a charm. Training takes about 7 – 10 days. 

“One of the things I didn’t account for in the beginning was just how social birds are when they are eating,” said Zuidhof. He has learned that placing a bird that understands the system with one who is learning allows the experienced bird to teach the other bird what to do. This idea is being leveraged in the upcoming commercial version of the feeding system to make the training easier. 

Another challenge along the way involved the low target body weight of the hens. 

After a trial where 38% of the hens didn’t come into lay for an entire year, Zuidhof and grad student Sascha van der Klein realized that the lean nature of the birds was comparable to elite female athletes whose menstrual cycles are interrupted when their body fat percentage gets extremely low. 

“We realized that something very similar was going on,” explained Zuidhof. “Now I’m working with Aviagen ( a primary breeder) on developing new body weight recommendations for broiler breeders that will probably impact the global recommendations that they provide.”

This would likely mean more feed in general. Zuidhof noted that there has been a lot of change in adult body weight but not a lot of change in the early body weights and that’s where feed restriction has been pretty severe. Broilers grow three or four times more quickly than they did 40 years ago and every year the broiler is leaner, higher yielding and faster growing. The female body weight curve has not been adjusted. 

“I think we are approaching a biological limit and changing from feeding once a day to feeding many times a day, we are seeing what’s in store if we don’t start to increase the body weights.”

Zuidhof is grateful for his partner, engineer Mark Fedorak, who is designing a whole new commercial version of the system that will be more effective, less expensive and easier to maintain. He has made a deep commitment both financially and through personal time to make the system operable. They need to finish the design before starting the build and it will likely be January 2023 before they can test the commercial design for large breeder facilities. Zuidhof is applying for funding to try the commercial prototype. The initial commercial attempt will be with males who make up 10% of the flock.

“We have seen that by keeping males at the right weight, our fertility has been excellent without having to do any spiking or replacement of males,” Zuidhof explained. “We have perfect uniformity; the more active birds get more feed and the less active get less so they all stay in really good breeding shape.”

Feeding Breeders Summit

Zuidhof’s research will be part of an upcoming Feeding Breeders Summit. The event begins with a webinar series for one hour a week (June- August 2022) which will progress through a set of related questions relevant to feeding broiler breeders. Knowledge shared in the webinar series will set the format and discussion for a capstone Summit from August 30 to September 1, 2022, in Canmore, Alberta. 

“I’m excited to share what I’ve learned at the Summit,” said Zuidhof. “I really feel that if someone doesn’t know we are approaching this biological limit, they are going to be surprised.”

“I look forward to having people in the room with tons of experience feeding broiler breeders in a conventional way as well. My way is very different and will require a different set of recommendations, but I think having many perspectives in the same room will really help us get to the root of the problems and come up with robust solutions.”

“Everyone has something to contribute and when another mind is added to the conversation there is almost always something new and beautiful that comes from it.”

For more information and registration details about the Feeding Breeders Webinars and Summit, click here. 

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