Animal Feed
COMING SOON
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Birds eat bugs.
💡 Insect proteins offer health and welfare benefits to poultr. 🐓
🐛 Insects offer immunity improvements in poultry and livestock, supporting health and reducing the need for antibiotics.
🐔 Insect farming could be a practical, economical and sustainable approach to create an alternative high-value protein produced for use in poultry feed. Insect proteins also offer immunity improvements in poultry and livestock, supporting health and reducing the need for antibiotics.
🐣 In the wild, poultry will naturally eat insects, considered to be a protein-rich food source high in energy such as lauric acid, a C-12 saturated fatty acid with demonstrated value-added, antimicrobial and antibacterial properties.
🐓 The use of insects to bioconvert by-products from other food production, like food waste, manure and other agricultural waste streams, could potentially minimize waste and upcycle nutrients, improving the sustainability of the poultry supply chain.
💡The short lifecycles of insects – typically less than 50 days – and ability to thrive on a variety of feedstocks make it an easy protein source to produce.
🔍 Full article: https://www.wattagnet.com/articles/44072-insect-proteins-offer-health-welfare-benefits-to-poultry
Fish eat bugs.
📈The insect feed protein market is expected to reach half a million tonnes in 2030.
🐾 By then, the pet food sector is projected to take 30% and aquaculture 40% of the total insect protein volumes.
👍 The insect industry is committed to ambitious targets that will help mitigate climate change and build a more sustainable food system.
🪰 Insects are a healthy and sustainable source of protein for food and feed.
💡In addition, their frass can be used as a fertilizer, contributing to a circular economy model of production.
Pets eat bugs.
🐶 Pet food demand for insect ingredients is increasingly driving demand.
🦗 Ex) cricket protein is a hypoallergenic alternative protein
🐾 Insects provide necessary nutritional benefits while still tasting delicious.
🐾 Rich in omega-3s, insect protein benefits dogs’ skin and coat health.
👍 It also is packed with prebiotic fiber, supporting a healthy gut and digestive system.
💡if considered their own country, USA pets would rank 5th in global meat consumption.
🤔 With over 64 million tons of carbon dioxide emitted into the environment from pet food production alone, the current system needs to change (source: chippin)
💡It only requires 1 gallon of water to produce 1 pound of cricket protein, whereas it takes around 2,000 gallons of water to produce the same amount of beef protein (source: chippin)
Livestock sustainability factors:
The difference in the environmental impact of pig, poultry, and beef products is due to three main factors: enteric CH4 production, reproduction rate, and food conversion efficiency. The yellow mealworm does not produce CH4. In addition, it has a high reproduction rate since the female T. molitor produces 160 eggs in her lifetime. In addition, the maturation period is short, as T. molitor reaches adulthood in 10 weeks.
Source: An Analysis of the Ethical, Economic, and Environmental Aspects of Entomophagy (Cureus)
Food conversion effeciency:
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Food conversion efficiency depends, among other things, on the diet supplied.
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The food conversion ratio (FCR) of yellow mealworm concentrates (kg/kg fresh weight) is similar to the values reported for chickens but lower than for pigs and cattle [27].
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Studies have compared different variables between insects and animal meat, and it has been observed that, in general, edible insects have a far lower environmental impact than livestock farming.
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Caterpillar, locust, and cricket larvae emit 100 times fewer emissions and 10 times less ammonia than cattle and pigs. If insects were bred and consumed instead of cows, the current greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by 10% [28].
Source: An Analysis of the Ethical, Economic, and Environmental Aspects of Entomophagy (Cureus)
Global warming potential (GWP):
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The global warming potential (GWP) index of yellow mealworms per kg of edible protein is low compared to other products such as milk (1.51-3.87 higher), chicken (1.32-2.67 higher), pork (1.51-3.87 higher), or beef (5.52-12.51 higher).
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Energy use in the production of the yellow mealworm per kg of edible protein is higher than that of milk (20%-83% of the value for the yellow mealworm) or chicken (46%-88%), similar to pork (55%-137% of the value for the yellow mealworm) and lower than that of beef.
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The yellow mealworm is poikilothermic and depends on suitable environmental temperatures for its growth and development.
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When ambient temperatures are low, they require warming, which increases energy consumption.
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Mitigation measures are being investigated; the largest larvae in this system produce a surplus of metabolic heat, which could be used to warm small larvae that require heat.
Source: An Analysis of the Ethical, Economic, and Environmental Aspects of Entomophagy (Cureus)
Land use:
The land use of the production system described was very low compared to that of milk (1.81-3.23 times higher), poultry such as chicken (2.30-2.85 times higher), pork (2.57-3.49 times higher), and beef (7.89-14.12 times higher) [27]. The production of insects does not require a large area of land, and water use is minimal. The area of land needed to produce the same amount of protein has been estimated to be approximately 1 ha for yellow mealworms, 2-3.5 ha for pigs or poultry, and 10 ha for cattle.
Source: An Analysis of the Ethical, Economic, and Environmental Aspects of Entomophagy (Cureus)
Water use:
The growing demand for water worldwide threatens biodiversity, food production, and other vital human needs. For example, yellow mealworms are more drought-resistant than cattle [26].
Source: An Analysis of the Ethical, Economic, and Environmental Aspects of Entomophagy (Cureus)
Digestible biomass:
💡 “Digestible biomass” is an important sustainability metric for livestock.
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🐛 Insects ~ 80% digestible
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🐄🐖🐓 Other Livestock ~ 44 - 55% digestible
💡 The replacement of meat with insects as the main source of protein could lead to the abandonment of 2,700 Mha of meadows and 100 Mha of farmland, which would result in large carbon sequestration of vegetation. In addition, nitrous oxide and methane emissions would decrease substantially.
Market | Species Group | Species | Benefit | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Aquaculture | Salmonid | Atlantic salmon | Nutrition | Lock et al. (2016), Belghit et al. (2018), Belghit et al. (2019a), Belghit et al. (2019b) |
Health and immunity | Li et al. (2019), Stenberg et al. (2019) | |||
Rainbow trout | Nutrition | St-Hilaire et al. (2007), Sealey et al. (2011), Stamer et al. (2014), Renna et al. (2017), Bruni et al. (2018), Dumas et al. (2018), Mancini et al. (2018), Cardinaletti et al. (2019), Józefiak et al. (2019) | ||
Health and immunity | Bruni et al. (2018), Dumas et al. (2018), Terova et al. (2019), Cardinaletti et al. (2019), Huyben et al. (2019), Józefiak et al. (2019), Rimoldi et al. (2019) | |||
Shrimp | Whiteleg shrimp | Nutrition; health and immunity; growth and performance | Shin et al. (2021), Chen et al. (2021), Richardson et al. (2021), Wang et al. (2021) | |
Nutrition | Cummins Jr. et al. (2017), Usman et al. (2021) | |||
Giant freshwater prawn | Nutrition | Amiruddin et al. (2021), Harin et al. (2021) | ||
Freshwater finfish | Channel catfish | Nutrition | Bondari and Sheppard (1981) | |
African catfish | Nutrition | Talamuk (2016) | ||
Yellow catfish | Nutrition; health and immunity; growth and performance | Hu et al. (2017), Xiao et al. (2018) | ||
Nile tilapia | Nutrition; growth and performance | Rana et al. (2015), Muin et al. (2017), Teye-Gaga (2017), Devic et al. (2018) | ||
Sturgeon | Nutrition | Caimi et al. (2020) | ||
Carnivorous marine finfish | Barramundi | Nutrition; health and immunity | Katya et al. (2017), Hender et al. (2021) | |
European seabass | Nutrition | López (2015), Magalhães et al. (2017), Abdel-Tawwab et al. (2020) | ||
Turbot | Nutrition | Kroeckel et al. (2012) | ||
Poultry | Poultry | Chicken | Nutrition; health and immunity; growth and performance | Marono et al. (2017), Abd El-Hack et al. (2020), Ipema et al. (2020a), Ipema et al. (2020b) |
Turkey | Nutrition; health and immunity; growth and performance | Veldkamp and van Niekerk (2019), Abd El-Hack et al. (2020) | ||
Quail | Nutrition; health and immunity; growth and performance | Abd El-Hack et al. (2020) | ||
Ducks | Nutrition; health and immunity; growth and performance | Abd El-Hack et al. (2020) | ||
Swine | Pigs | Pig | Health and immunity | Ipema et al. (2021a), Ipema et al. (2021b) |
Pet Food | Canine | Dog | Nutrition | Bosch and Swanson (2021), Freel et al. (2021) |
Feline | Cat | Nutrition | Bosch and Swanson (2021) |