Research

One of our research programs includes our Feed Kitchens. The Feed Kitchens consist of a technology suited to track usage, calculate feed intake, and feed efficiency. The technology evaluates least cost diets for the producer resulting in improved profitability.

With this technology, United Animal Health can feed 12,000 pigs on the Feed Kitchens at any given time and over 40,000 annually. The Feed Kitchens enhance research capabilities by allowing diet adjustments within each pen on a daily basis and allow for feeding multiple treatments in the same barn.  This automation provides a consistency in the variability of feeding and provides flexibility for research team members.

United Animal Health has a large commitment to this research tool whose main purpose is to evaluate and compare multiple diets within a barn across all animals. The addition of the United Animal Health Feed Kitchens in the late 1990s increased the quality and quantity of research United Animal Health has been able to conduct.

Our Feed Kitchens relies on several sources of information, including historical nutrition research and feeding curves, as well as feed intake information collected in the barn over time. This tool measures performance in barns in real time and can make frequent small changes to diets to suit changing environments, feed quality, and biological differences. Because the system allows adjustments to diets during phase feeding, overfeeding is avoided. It also controls cross-contamination.

Since feed makes up the greatest segment of operating costs, changes in feeding practices assure both small and large producers greater returns on their investments.