Designed to optimise the genetic potential. The Blueprint program strengthens Alltech Lienert’s commitment to helping producers identify ways to improve efficiency and optimise genetic performance. This unique program allows Alltech Lienert to work closely with producers to target issues and make feeding program recommendations based on farm analyses and nutritional assessments.
The new science behind Blueprint includes technologies that let us look at nutrition from the inside. To have a better understanding of interactions that fuel growth, immune defence, and reproductive function, we look at how cells, genes and gut microbe populations respond to the diet. We see nutrition from nature’s point of view. Blueprint has been scientifically formulated to target animal health and performance at the cellular level and build upon the genetic potential at each stage of an animal’s lifecycle. Too often we focus on ‘least cost’ and the animal never gets the opportunity to reach its genetic potential. Feeding an animal exactly what it needs, all the way down to the cellular level, will result in better health, increased performance and improved profitability.
The Blueprint product range is designed to focus on all stages of life, from prenatal development through to market, while also looking after the well-being of breeding stock. Our experts will work with you to implement the Blueprint Nutrition program as well as monitor its success and overall return on investment. Our initial on-farm work has been outstanding, and we expect these products to become the premium standard in Australia, Blueprint leverages science to improve performance and profitability.
Building the 6 Fundamentals of the Blueprint Nutrition Program
Livestock need more than protein, fat and fibre – What’s missing?
1. NUTRIENT FORM
Using nutrition to better meet the needs of animals’ genetics requires going beyond simply adding higher nutrient concentrations to the diet, altering digestibility or the bioavailability of ingredients. It means taking a closer look at the nature of nutrients in the feed. The variety of nutrient forms naturally present in forages and grains gives us the clues we need to build better feeds. In nature, we would find more than a simple analysis of protein, fat, minerals, vitamins and fibre. Like livestock genetics, the nutritional sciences have evolved. Our concept of nutrients continues to expand, allowing us to provide diets with both functional and nutritional characteristics. Blueprint Nutrition contains the ingredients needed to shift nutrient profiles in practical diets toward more functional, usable forms that better meet animals’ needs.
2. REPRODUCTIVE FUNCTION
Modern producers have nutrition for meat production well in hand, and today most limiting factors or ‘choke points’ for productivity and reproduction are related to supplying nutrients for health and development. Can we better prepare young or transport-stressed animals to meet disease and digestive challenges? Can we target diets of cows to reduce embryonic mortality? Improve conception rates? Increase neonatal vigor? Maximise performance and meat quality in progeny?
3. IMMUNE DEFENCE
You can’t always prevent the appearance of an unknown pathogen, but functional
trace mineral nutrition can help prepare the immune system for a successful fight. In nature’s food chain, plants process soil minerals into forms animals can easily digest and use. Trace minerals are important nutritional weapons in the fight against disease, and the form in which they are presented in feed can sharpen their aim. Organic minerals differ from inorganic forms in standard premixes because they are bound to protein fragments just like those in plants and are readily available when needed.
4. FEED QUALITY
Inorganic minerals are mined primarily for other industries, with their use in feed additives representing a small part of its target market. The use of organic trace minerals, however, targets feed safety and quality.
5. GUT DEVELOPMENT
Carbohydrates in feed come in a wide variety of forms from simple sugars to complex structural fibres such as plant cellulose. Energy supplies are usually the first to be addressed, but it’s necessary to look at the functional roles of CHO (Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen), which are equally important. Fibre sources have important functions in gut motility, as other sugars and oligosaccharides (complex sugars) contribute to gut health by taking into account the harmful bacteria that begin to colonise when conditions within the GI tract are compromised.
6. MICROBIOMICS
The new science behind Blueprint include technologies that let us look at nutrition from the inside. To have a better understanding of interactions that fuel growth, immune defence and reproductive function, we look at how cells, genes and gut microbe populations respond to the diet. We see nutrition
from nature’s point of view.
Microbiomics – The microbial population in the intestinal ecosystem reacts to altered ingredients and other environmental factors such as rancidity in fats or pro-oxidant mineral forms. How do changes in the microbiome of the animal affect its role in digestion and immune defence?
Glycomics – A look at all the sugars in an organism whether they are free or part of a complex molecule. Can shifting a diet’s carbohydrate profile affect the many functions of sugars in the animal’s tissues and organs?
Nutrigenomics – Nutrition affects gene expression. What genes and metabolic pathways are affected when nutrient forms and amounts change in animal feed?
These analyses are made possible by High-Throughput Technologies (HTT) that let us see all the proteins, all the sugars and all the genes expressed in cells of specific tissues. Finding the patterns and discovering important interactions let us build synergism into diets in new ways, matching diet composition to meet genetic potential of animals.
