The digestion of feed by animals mainly depends on the action of endogenous digestive enzymes. In addition to the digestive enzymes secreted by animals themselves, adding enzyme preparations to feed can also promote the digestion and utilization of feed by animals.

Feed enzymes can supplement the shortage of endogenous digestive enzymes in animals and some exogenous enzymes that cannot be secreted by the body, and improve the digestion and absorption of nutrients. In this way, energy and protein resources can be saved, animal production performance can be improved, animal production costs can be reduced, and environmental pollution caused by animal production can also be reduced.

1. TYPES OF FEED ENZYMES

There are various classifications of feed enzymes. According to the composition, enzymes can be divided into single enzyme and compound enzymes. According to their functions, enzymes can be divided into digestive enzymes and degrading enzymes. At present, there are some special functional enzymes, such as lysozyme, glucose oxidase, catalase, mycotoxins degrading enzymes.

SINGLE ENZYME

DIGESTIVE ENZYMES These enzymes can be secreted by poultry themselves, mainly to digest nutrients such as carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in the feed, helping poultry to improve the digestibility of the feed. At present, the digestive enzymes used in feed mainly include amylase, protease, lipase, etc., which are used to supplement the shortage of endogenous digestive enzyme secretion under special circumstances such as early growth and stress.

NON-DIGESTIVE ENZYMES These enzymes cannot be secreted by animals themselves and need additional supplementation, mainly to degrade those components that are low in digestibility, anti-nutritional or harmful to poultry, so as to improve the physical and chemical properties of the digestive tract and provide an efficient working environment for digestive enzymes. Non-digestive enzymes mainly include phytase, β-mannanase, xylanase, β-glucanase, cellulase, etc.

COMPOUND ENZYMES

Compound enzymes are multi-enzyme products that are designed and composed of different single enzymes according to the type of animal and diet. Compound enzymes for poultry can be divided into various types according to the type of diet. Such as wheat diet type, mixed diet type, corn-soybean meal diet type and miscellaneous meal diet type.

Poultry have different requirements for compound enzymes when they eat different diets. The main direction of compound enzymes must be to solve the most important, most critical, most economically valuable, and most impacted problems on animal production. Also know that enzymes do not solve all problems, but they are essential.

The design and use of compound enzymes must be targeted. It is necessary to select the enzyme preparation targeted for production according to the characteristics of animal species, feed formula composition, processing technology, etc., so that the compound enzyme can play the greatest role.

Everything has priorities, and the same goes for enzymes. Enzymes selected for different feed structures should also be focused. For conventional corn-soybean meal formula (with a small proportion of miscellaneous meal), the first choice is low-temperature amylase, followed by β-mannanase, protease, and xylanase. (Phytase is already very commonly used).

2. THE FUNCTION OF FEED ENZYME PREPARATION

SYNERGIZE WITH ENDOGENOUS DIGESTIVE ENZYMES 

In the juvenile stage of poultry, the secretion and digestion of digestive enzymes are not perfect, and the underdeveloped digestive system can limit the growth and development of juvenile animals. Adding exogenous digestive enzymes can effectively supplement the deficiency of endogenous enzymes, improve the utilization rate of feed nutrients for young poultry, and avoid the occurrence of diseases such as nutritional diarrhea caused by indigestion, and the decline of growth rate.

RELEASE MORE NUTRIENTS

The nutrients of plant raw materials are wrapped in the cell wall. When poultry uses plant nutrients, the first thing is to destroy the cell wall to release nutrients.

There are many ways to destroy the cell wall, such as the mechanical processing of raw materials, the feeding process of poultry, etc. Enzyme preparations are also an effective method to help animals destroy the cell wall to release nutrients to improve the availability of nutrients.

Poultry cannot secrete enzymes that destroy cell walls, such as cellulase, β-glucanase, xylanase, etc. However, supplementation of exogenous degrading enzymes can help poultry to destroy the anti-nutritional effect of these non-starch polysaccharides to release more nutrients for animal digestion and utilization.

DEGRADATION OF ANTI-NUTRITIONAL FACTORS IN FEED

In feed ingredients, nutrients and anti-nutritional factors coexist.

Anti-nutritional factors can not only reduce the digestion and absorption rate of nutrients in animals, but also cause the sensitivity of animal intestines to diseases and reduce the disease resistance of animals.

Common anti-nutritional factors in feed include phytate phosphorus, non-starch polysaccharides, protease inhibitors, etc.

Phytase and NSP enzymes can help animals destroy these anti-nutrients, improve the digestion and absorption environment of the intestinal tract, and promote the digestion and absorption of feed nutrients.

REDUCED FEED QUALITY VARIABILITY

The sources of feed raw materials are extensive and complex, and it is difficult for the feed factory to control the quality variation of different batches of raw materials when using them, and the variation of the nutritional value of raw materials often causes fluctuations in the quality of feed products.

Adding enzymes to feed can improve the digestibility and utilization of raw materials, reduce the nutrient variation between batches of raw materials, and improve the stability of feed products, thereby improving the uniformity of animal production performance.

IMPROVE THE INTESTINAL ENVIRONMENT AND IMMUNITY OF ANIMALS

Excessive fermentation of harmful microbes in the back of the gut can damage gut health and reduce immunity.

Supplementing feed enzymes can promote the digestion and absorption of feed in the front part of the digestive tract, and indirectly affect the number and structure of microorganisms in the back part of the intestinal tract. The optimization of the gut microecological environment not only improves gut health and resistance to disease, but also reduces the use of antibiotics and improves food safety.