The Zinpro® Perfect Carcass® Tool Improves Every Stage of Poultry Production 

The most important aspects of meat quality, from the perspective of a consumer at the supermarket, are those that address product appearance (color), texture (tenderness), flavor (fat content), nutritional value and, of course, food safety.

What Challenges Are Broilers Up Against? 

Broiler profitability isn’t just about feed conversion. Meat yield, quality and safety are critical for success. These birds are up against several challenges that put their overall health and wellbeing and profitability at risk,  

• Harmful pathogens 
• Intestinal health 
• Respiratory disease 
• Skin integrity  

Providing proven nutrition is critical to improving gut health and immunity, while decreasing skin lesions and lameness. All of these elements positively impact birds’ ability to resist disease and to perform, improving profitability and providing consumers with a safer, better product.  

However, improving the diet is only one step. How do you measure the impact of your investments?  

How the Zinpro® Perfect Carcass® Tool Works 

The Zinpro Perfect Carcass Tool, a one-of-a-kind product, is an added service offered specially for our poultry customers. It allows the user, primarily the quality control department of a poultry processing facility, to identify, quantify and estimate the economic impact of lesions found on broiler carcasses. 

With a visual guide, the Zinpro Perfect Carcass Tool allows users to identify carcass lesions in their poultry flocks and score those lesions on a standardized scoring system. The most common lesions the tool evaluates are wing hematomas, myopathy and, in some regions, scratches. This helps users measure losses that aren’t currently being evaluated elsewhere. 

The tool evaluates lesion scores and estimates the economic impact those lesions are having within a poultry production operation. It can help estimate how many carcasses will need to be downgraded from Grade A to Grade B and how many carcasses may be lost due to carcass condemnation.

This unique tool then transforms the results and evaluations into a data report that points out potential areas of improvement. The report can provide recommendations to reduce the incidence of lesions in a flock and improve poultry production and performance through management and poultry nutrition. Users will be able to identify logistics issues that are leading to increased lesion prevalence, such as: 

• Prolonged feed withdrawal periods
• Dehydration
• Heat stress due to inadequate lairage areas
• Inefficient or inadequate harvesting techniques
• Traumatic points during processing

Zinpro® Performance Minerals® Reduce Skin, Vascular and Other Types of Lesions 

Genetics play a key role in meat quality, but so do management and poultry nutrition. Feed and feed supplement quality can have a significant impact on the final product. By feeding performance trace minerals, like zinc from Zinpro^® Availa^® Zn, poultry producers can improve skin integrity in broilers. This reduces the incidence of skin lesions and the potential for carcass condemnation, resulting in more meat to sell. This has also been an asset to improving animal welfare and wellness by identifying areas of opportunity all the way from the breeding barn to the processing plant.  

In a peer-reviewed research study with Auburn University, we found several improvements including:  

• The percentage of skin lesions decreased from 42.7% in broilers fed inorganic zinc sulfate to 9.6% in birds fed zinc from Zinpro Availa Zn 
• The prevalence of cellulitis lesions was reduced from 52% to 40% when birds were fed Zinpro Availa Zn instead of inorganic zinc 

Zinpro^® Performance Minerals^® also reduce vascular issues like wing hematomas, according to data obtained at the Scottish Agricultural College. Feeding 40 ppm of zinc from Zinpro Availa Zn significantly reduced the percentage of birds with mild and severe wing bruises. 

Learn more: Performance Trace Minerals Help Decrease Skin Lesions in Poultry

In addition, the Zinpro Perfect Carcass Tool contributes to the sustainability of a business, as it helps increase the amount of high-quality poultry meat produced with less trimmings, downgrading, DOAs and condemnations. When you implement a full replacement with Zinpro Performance Minerals, you are adding fewer micro minerals (ppm) to the feed and reducing the environmental excretion. 

Who Benefits from the Zinpro Perfect Carcass Tool? 

The Perfect Carcass Tool provides an added science-based value to the poultry industry that no one else offers. It provides a clear picture of the connection between flock health pre-mortem and carcass quality post-mortem.

Together with customers, we have been able to take a forensic approach to identify production and processing challenges and why and where they happened. This information allows us to establish actionable items, improve processes and results and uncover more profitability potential. 

It benefits all stakeholders at every stage of poultry production, including:

• Quality managers directly involved in monitoring carcass quality and training the staff at poultry processing facilities.
• Processing plant managers and financial managers who are responsible for the economics of their plants and can identify where in the process the economic losses are occurring.
• Flock managers or supervisors, who can then evaluate solutions for lesions that are originating at their facilities or during transport.
• Nutritionists who can analyze the data and link the use of Zinpro Performance Minerals to poultry performance.

To learn more the Zinpro Perfect Carcass Tool and discuss opportunities to use it to improve poultry production, contact your Zinpro representative today. 

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