Animal nutrition

Improving animal feed

Nutrition isn’t just essential for humans. Enzyme solutions for animal feed can increase the feed conversion ratio and boost performance in a sustainable way.

Explore our solutions

Why do animals need enzymes in their feed?

When animals digest their feed, their stomachs and small intestines secrete a wide range of enzymes that break down starch, protein and fats into their components, which are then absorbed as vital nutrition. These remaining components make up about 30-90 per cent of the animal’s feed. What happens to the rest? Waste.

Farmers are under pressure to feed an increasingly hungry world, so it’s essential to get the most out of animal feed. Improving the digestibility of animal feed nutrients is the best way to improve the net benefit animals obtain from their feed – and it can be done with the use of enzymes.

The Ronozyme^® range of enzymes for animal feed enhances the digestibility of energy, protein, and phosphorus – the three most expensive components of any animal’s feed. This enhances animal feed quality, reduces animal feed cost, safeguards animal health, and protects the environment.

The Alliance is greater than the sum of its parts

More than twenty years ago, two pioneers perceived the potential of feed enzymes and joined forces to explore the benefits of these innovative compounds. Combining their complementary capabilities and working hand in hand with their customers, they created a unique Alliance that has developed the industry’s most complete and innovative feed and gut health enzymes portfolio: The DSM | Novozymes Feed Enzymes Alliance.

Our pioneering partnership delivers improved animal performance while making a ground-breaking contribution to the sustainability of global livestock farming. And even as we look back on the first two decades of solving industry challenges together, this is just the start of our story: feed enzymes will play an increasingly key role in sustainable animal production in the years to come.

Visit the feed enzymes alliance website

Fighting for Phosphate

Phosphorus is essential for animal metabolism, but is often inaccessible to swine and poultry in the most common animal feedstocks. Adding inorganic phosphates allows feed to meet phosphorus needs, but it increases the cost and environmental impact of production. A phytase is an enzyme that releases phosphate from animal feed.

Take the mystery out of phytase: Novozymes’ phytase expert Lars Skov and DSM’s principle scientist Aaron Cowieson help demystify phytases by explaining their characteristics and product forms.

A great protease for a better environment

Ronozyme^® ProAct is the world’s first protease to help improve the digestion and uptake of protein in broiler chicks. For producers, this means lower costs and less environmental impact.

The protease complements the bird’s own digestive enzymes, improves protein digestibility and makes more amino acids available to the animal. Adding ProAct to the feed allows the diet to contain less protein and thereby reduces overall feed costs by three to eight percent.

One environmental challenge caused by protein in chicken feed involves residual nitrogen emissions from manure. These emissions are an environmental hazard for the land, water and air. Better protein digestibility from using a protease in the feed means that chicks’ manure contains less nitrogen.

Co-create the future of feed

The Animal Health & Nutrition products we develop with our partners enable more sustainable and economical livestock production.

Reach out if you have any technical questions or want to learn more about what this could mean for your business.