A feed additive is a drug or extra nutrients that are required to feed livestock to get extra nutrients. Such additives include amino acids, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, fungal products, pharmaceutical, and steroidal compounds.  These additives might influence feed hygiene, presentation, the effect on abdominal health, or digestibility.

Types and benefits of feed additives:

Adding feed additives in the natural feed of the cattle can improves the health of the farm animals. It will have a favorable influence on their reproduction and productivity. Also, feed additives can increase the quality of by-products and helps the cattle produce more health milk.

In general, supply feed additives are categorized into four major groups that include:

Nutritional feed additives:

Nutritional feed additives are additives that provide precise nutrients like urea, amino acids, vitamins, and more. These nutrient factors are not found enough in the regular feed provided to the livestock.  For example, if the cattle stop grazing the green grass, then they can have Vitamin A deficiency, then it can further lead to respiratory infections, and also reduces the growth, reproduction, and milk output.  If the farmers find their cattle have vitamin A deficiency, then they should fee Vitamin A supplements to keep their cattle healthy.

Likewise, when farmers keep their poultry indoors during the winter months, then they will have Vitamin D deficiency as they are not exposed to the sun regularly.  Farmers add supplements to the feed of the poultry to prevent the diseases occurred due to vitamin D deficiency like rickets; it is a disease that bows the legs of hens and prevents them from walking or standing.

Sensory feed additives:

Sensory Feed Additives are used to stimulate the appetite of the livestock and to increase their feed intake.  This additive brings a positive effect on the growth and output of the cattle.   Sensory additives are available in the form of flavored supplements like sweeteners, and they also change the smell and look of the feed to make it more appetizing so that farm animals can eat more.  Colorants are added to enhance or restore color in feeds; also they can have their effect on the feel and look of the meat produced by the animals consumed the additive, and it further provides a healthier-looking texture.

Antibiotic feed additives:

An antibiotic feed additive is also called as histomonats and coccidiostats, and these additives are fed to livestock to fight bacterial disease and infections.  Antibiotic additives do not provide extra nutritional value to the feed, but they are used to enhance the productivity of feed use and acceptance or to increase the metabolism and health of the cattle.

Antibiotic additives are provided in two ways that include therapeutically method, where the sufficient doses are provided to the livestock to make sure they remove the disease in a group of animals. The second method is the sub-therapeutic method, where reduced doses of antibiotics are provided to improve performance factors like feed efficiency and growth of the animals.

Zootechnical feed additives:

Zootechnical Feed additives are provided to livestock to improve the overall nutritional value of the feed.  However, it is not supplemented with certain nutrients, but this feed additive empowers animals to use the nutritional content in the feed more efficiently.  For example, digestibility additives help animals eat all the nutrients and other stuff in their feed and gut flora stabilizer includes micro-organisms that improve the beneficial bacteria in the feeding livestock.

Technological feed additives:

Technological feed additives have a functional drive in the feed. Though technological additive doesn’t impact the nutritional value of the feed directly, they work indirectly by increasing the sterility or behavior.

Most of these food additives help reduce the perishability of the feed, like preservatives that are included in the feed to protect the feed from deterioration caused by antioxidants and microorganisms.