GreenChicken
Funding organisation: Bundesanstalt für Landwirtschaft und Ernährung
Period: 2023-2027
Contact: Uwe
Aim and Challenge:
Circular feeding strategies in organic chicken farming
From a consumer perspective, a high level of animal welfare plays a particularly important role in organic chicken farming. Dual-purpose chicken breeds for egg and meat production offer the opportunity to make the previously unprofitable rearing of brother roosters from laying hybrids more ecologically and economically effective. A major challenge in organic chicken farming, which requires adult animals to be fed 100% organically produced feed, is the limitation of the essential sulphur-containing amino acids methionine and cysteine in the grain legumes used for this purpose, namely peas, field beans and lupins.
Due to the ban on supplementation with synthetic amino acids in organic animal husbandry, alternative protein sources must be used to ensure that feed meets amino acid requirements. Insect meal can also be used for this purpose.
This is where the GreenChicken project comes in, examining feeding strategies for laying hens and broilers throughout the entire production cycle of the animals. The effects on performance indicators, animal health and the product quality of eggs and meat are being investigated. For this purpose, exact trials are being conducted on the influence of the Lohman Sandy, ÖTZ Coffee and Lohmann Dual genetics and ration design with and without black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens L.) insect meal in combination with data collected from commercial farms.
In Work Package 8, a life cycle analysis using a cradle-to-gate approach in accordance with DIN ISO 14040/14044 is used to analyse the environmental impact based on various impact categories such as climate, eutrophication potential, acidification potential, resource and water consumption, and nitrogen and phosphorus nutrient balances. The impact categories are related to specific product quantities such as 1 kg of marketable eggs and 1 kg of live weight and classified using comparative values from the literature. For the life cycle analysis, a life cycle inventory of the production resources used and the quantities of products and waste generated and emissions produced is compiled. In addition, information from the exact experiment and the practical farms and statistical data on the spatial distribution of production processes are used for a spatial projection of the product quantities and environmental impacts across the whole of Germany of the variants examined.
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