IPPE: Feed efficiency becomes the frontline for poultry profitability

15 April 2026

7 minute read

By: Sarah Mikesell

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Dr. Aldo Rossi, Director of Veterinary Services, recently spoke to The Poultry Site’s Sarah Mikesell at the International Production and Processing Expo (IPPE) in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. 

Dr. Rossi, why has feed efficiency become the primary front line for protecting profitability in today's poultry operations? 

There are several factors. First, just like we all experience in normal life, things are costing more. As input costs increase and as narrow as the profit margins are in the poultry industry, you need to start looking at how to best optimize factors like feed efficiency. 

In addition, feed is approximately 70% of what it costs to produce a pound of meat or a kilogram of meat. That's a high cost, and anything you can do to shave down the things that reduce profitability and that fine margin can make a big difference. 

I've heard it said more than once, “Anything times a million is a lot.” Most operations will be slaughtering a million birds per week or more. Again, any amount of cost saving times a million is a big number. 

Many flocks appear healthy on the surface yet still experience performance losses. How does subclinical disease, pathogenic bacteria and biotoxins quietly undermine feed efficiency and margins in commercial production systems? 

With any disease, birds may have classic clinical signs like high mortality or the birds are not looking good. Or you might even recognize the amount of drinking water has decreased. Those are the obvious signs that help you recognize that this flock is sick, and you can react to it. 

It's the subclinical disease that causes the small little increments of decrease in livability or a small decrease in feed conversion, that you may miss. You might even say, “Well, it's so small, maybe it's just variability,” or “It could be from weather conditions.” There may be other reasons that lead you away from concluding that the cause may be disease related.

Unfortunately, when you start talking about bacterial enteritis type scenarios, there can be a slow erosion to the integrity of the intestinal barrier. As the integrity of the gut slowly degrades, leakage both into the gut and from the gut into the body occur, eventually leading to noticeable issues and clinical signs of disease. 

In most cases, with a healthy bird’s immune system and with good management, you may not physically see any clinical signs, but the birds are spending enough energy to manage the challenge that it’s taking away from your profitability. 

Why do some conventional nutritional or management approaches fall short when birds are under real world disease and stress pressure? 

There are several reasons, but as with anything, execution is important. Whether it's execution of a management strategy or a feeding program, you need to get the raw ingredients and the products into the feed, mix it correctly and get the right feed to the correct farm. Then you've got to get it to the chickens; and they've got to consume enough to be effective. 

When looking historically at a bacterial enteritis type scenario, antibiotic growth promotors were commonly used for many decades in the industry. I used them many times in my career working in the poultry industry. However, these types of products start to erode in efficacy over time. You start having slight resistance or maybe full resistance. Some of these different factors may start affecting how management strategies are being effective against diseases like necrotic enteritis. 

Varium is positioned as a solution that performs under commercial conditions, not just ideal ones. What does the research tell us about how protecting gut integrity supports more consistent feed conversion and nutrient utilization? 

Our research development team at Amlan International were looking to develop a product that would do a little bit more than an antibiotic. Antibiotics, without resistance issues, are highly effective in killing or reducing bacteria. Depending on the antibiotic, you can have a broader spectrum approach, so you might be killing the pathogenic bacteria, but you also might be affecting the population of the beneficial bacteria. In any case, that's all they do, and some of them are very effective at that one function. 

The product we were looking to develop was a non-antibiotic version – something more natural – that would provide a more holistic approach to gut health and gut integrity. The gut is constantly bombarded, whether it's bacteria, parasites, viruses and maybe even some feed ingredients, attacking cells and causing some cells to die and having to be repaired and replaced. That happens even in healthy chickens. We don't grow our chickens in a sterile environment. Toxins like mycotoxins can come in through the feed or there are toxins being released by bacteria in the gut.  So, these toxins are constantly attacking the cells. 

We were looking for an approach that's more holistic than just affecting bacteria - one that would help overall gut health. 

Varium is composed of three ingredients. One of them is our base clay, which is amazingly effective at binding the endotoxins and exotoxins that are produced by bacteria, including ones like E. coli or Clostridium perfringens.  The clay goes through a thermal process that is critical in changing the surface chemistry of the clay.  Now it's able to bind not only these toxins, as I mentioned, but it also binds the fimbriae of pathogenic bacteria, like E. coli or Clostridium. 

What's interesting about this property of our clay is that lactobacillus, a beneficial bacteria in the gut, have unique fimbriae. Their fimbriae do not attach to our clay. We've seen in our research that our clay can reduce the load of pathogenic bacteria in the gut and allow the beneficial lactobacillus bacteria to come into balance, because now they don't have competition. It’s almost like a competitive exclusion. 

The other ingredient in the product provides an energy source to the cells of the intestinal lining. As I mentioned, they're constantly being attacked by toxins, bacteria, viruses, etc. The intestinal cells absorb the energy source quickly and utilize it quickly to strengthen, repair and replenish epithelial cells. Again, we have data to show both numerically as well as physically looking under a microscope, showing that we can improve the thickness and the health of the gut lining.

I love hearing about your clay because it's fascinating to me how it works to binds things because it is unique. Tell our readers more about it.

It is and the other thing I'll mention is that not all clays are the same and not all clays can go through a thermal process. Ours can because of its structure and even though we do remove some moisture from it, the layers don't collapse – they still maintain a high surface area for binding the things we talked about. 

Our processing is proprietary as well. There is a specific time and a certain temperature that are needed to be able to optimize the clay surface chemistry. If you don't do it enough, the surface chemistry doesn't change that much, and it's very hydrophilic. If you go too much, then it turns into something that doesn't bind anything at all. It's a science – 85 years’ worth of science and technology developed by our company. 

When gut health is compromised, energy is often diverted away from growth. Can you explain how maintaining intestinal integrity and immune resilience translate directly into stronger returns on feed investment? 

If you look at the whole intestinal system, it's the largest immune organ in the body. An immune response to any challenge does take a lot of energy. Science shows that when a bird is challenged, whether it’s inflammation or a direct disease challenge, the body is spending significant energy to fix, correct or reverse it. 

Anything we can do to help minimize that challenge and continue to maintain the integrity of the gut, the better the circumstances are for improved nutrient absorption. You can minimize the leakage both of plasma proteins coming from the body into the gut and vice versa where you have bacteria or other toxins going from the gut into the body and going systemic affecting several different organs. Of course, now you're starting to talk about affecting performance, affecting health and affecting overall animal welfare. 

Is there anything else you wanted to add? 

If there's anyone interested in using our product, we would love them to contact us. We collaborate with customers all over the world with trials for different species. We'd be interested in working with anyone who has an interest in our product. 

Also, please visit our website. There's a great deal of information including our research data, videos, blogs, etc. to explore.