Poultry and animal husbandry farming has evolved over time with farmers today facing dual challenges of maintaining high productivity while ensuring animal health and food safety.

As such Poultry and animal feed additives have become an indispensable tool for optimizing nutrition, enhancing immunity and preventing disease infection naturally.

By incorporating these additives into daily feeding routine, farmers can ensure healthier flocks, high yielding breeds and more sustainable poultry and animal production for commercialization.

This is the thinking of Veterinary Doctors who have come up under their umbrella company Confeed International to process poultry and animal additives for farmer uptake across the country.

They were showcasing their technology at the ongoing trade show organized every year by Uganda Manufacturers Association.

Understanding the Role of Poultry Feed Additives

Dr Ismail Nsubuga a veterinarian and Proprietor of Confeed International, a company processing Poultry and animal feed additives defines the product as specialized ingredients added to the diet of chickens, ducks, or any other poultry species and animal breeds to improve performance and overall health.

These additives can include probiotics, prebiotics, enzymes, organic acids, vitamins, minerals, and herbal extracts.

Unlike conventional antibiotics or synthetic growth promoters, modern feed additives focus on enhancing the animal’s natural defense mechanism, digestion and nutrient absorption.

He notes that most additives accessed by farmers in the market are imported from countries such as UK and Netherlands among others.

In 2003 after graduating with Diploma in Animal Husbandry from Bukalasa Agricultural Technical Institute he worked with a drug company.

He however had interest in animal and poultry feed formulation and later stopped working and started formulating feeds.

He later noticed that a Kenyan based Company UNGA group was marketing its poultry and animal feed products in Uganda including feed additives.

He travelled to the Nakuru based UNGA processing offices and met the Managing Director who educated him on what to do and gave him samples to come back with.

From then onwards, he never looked back and in 2006 he registered his company and started to process poultry and animal feed additives with other Veterinary Doctors joining him.

Dr Nsubuga who later pursued a degree course in Animal Husbandry at University of Nkozi and online veterinary course in Medicine is now an expert in formulating and processing poultry and animal additives.

He contends that a quick look at the poultry and animal feeds in Uganda is done by lay people who do the formulation on trial and error.

“When we talk about poultry and animal feeding, it must be in line with their needs fulfilling ingredients such as energy giving foods, proteins, vitamins, supplements and additives.  We go ahead to study and analyze these needs and formulate additives for different poultry species be it is broilers, kroilers, local chicken breed and layers among others.  The same formulation applies to animal breeds,” he noted.

Advantages of feed additives

Dr David Galiwango the in charge of marketing explains the advantage of feed additives saying it boosts faster growth of birds and animals but in the case of layer birds, it boosts egg production.

For the case of local chicken that take longer growth period of more than one year to be ready for sale, once additives are mixed in their feed, they growth period can be reduced to six months.

There are two types of additives which include premix of different types which help to supply the trace vitamins and minerals that help the bird's body process efficiently the feed given to them, be it protein or carbohydrates.

The second product is the meat and egg booster which enables the bird or animal to gain weight faster meaning the farmer will not take long to feed the bird ready for sell.

Farmers can use eggomix booster to boost the size of eggs to attract better farm gate price. The birds will be able to lay eggs on daily basis.

In case of animals, it boosts the meat growth rate as well as milk production.

Dr Galiwango explains that animal husbandry farmers can add 2kg of premix or booster in 50 kg of broken maize to feed to animals. For birds I kg of meat booster is mixed in 70kg of broken maize.

Other advantages include solving disease burden. It is advisable to mix the feed called Gobo Stop Plus for birds in danger of being attacked by Gomboro and Newcastle infection.

By reducing disease incidence, farmers spend less on medications and treatments.

Improved nutrient absorption and feed efficiency lower the overall cost of production Healthier, stress-resistant birds and animals produce more meat and eggs, enhancing profitability.

Efficient feeding reduces environmental impact, meeting consumer demand for responsibly produced poultry products.

A 200gm of Gombo stop plus costs Shs6, 000 and another product gluecovit of 200gms costs Shs5, 000. It contains energy which can be given to birds and animals to build their immune system.

It must be mixed in water. A tea spoon is mixed in I liter water for one day old birds. Two day old onwards, the ratio is 2 table spoon per 20 liter of water.

Other products are Confeed premix Genera Purpose (G.P) where 500gms costs Shs2, 000

The experts contend that lack of vitamin A and E results undeveloped bird brain which makes them become crazy. They will not feed well because they fail to notice the feed since they always raise their heads leading to death.

Some of the additives contain calcium which is good for feather development and muscle build up.

The team appreciates their effort as the first Ugandan Veterinary Doctors to process Ugandan made animal and poultry feed additives which farmers can access at a cheaper price.