Two years ago, a daughter-in-law of the late Senator Raul Roco, Obi, introduced to me a Seaweed-based feed additive, Eco-Life, which she said was produced out of the Ulva seaweeds gathered by Filipino fishermen from the many coastal areas of the country.
I bought 50 bags for my Manok Pinoy free-range chicken and started mixing it with the commercial feeds at a ratio of 5 kilos in every 100 kilos.
Late last year, when we started formulating our own feeds using locally available raw materials, with only soya meal as the imported component, Eco-Life seaweed feed additive became one of the indispensable components.
Since ours is just a simple farm operation with the workers learning how to raise chicken only through years of experiment, I cannot determine for sure what improvements were achieved in the growth and egg-laying rate of our chicken.
I noticed one very remarkable improvement though and this was the disappearance of cases of Coccidiosis and Diarrhea in our free-range chicken.
Cocci was one of our major problems previously because birds are aplenty in my farm because of my strict orders that they should not be hurt and allowed to share feeds with the chicken.
While we still have cases of Coryza, Avian Malaria and some respiratory ailments in the range, the disappearance of Coccidiosis, a debilitating disease for chicken, is a big relief for us.
Recently, I read the results of a research published in Animal Feed Science and Technology which said that “Green seaweed E. prolifera included at 1–3% resulted in improved egg production and quality: it increased weight, shell thickness, and yolk colour and reduced cholesterol in yolk. It also resulted in a lower E. coli load in faeces, suggesting better animal health.”
Encouraged by these scientific findings, we went a notch higher yesterday in our use of seaweeds for our free range chicken.
We started mixing liquid Seaweeds concentrate in the drinking water at a ratio of one bottle cap per gallon of water.
The Seaweed concentrate, a by-product in the processing of Carrageenan, was given to me by Philippine Ambassador to Indonesia, Lee Hiong Wee, whose family is one of the pioneers in the Seaweed industry in the country.
Our chicken will be given this Seaweed-water mix three days weekly.
We will continuously take note of the improvements in our flock because of this experiment and will share the results in future posts.
(Photos show my farm worker mixing seaweeds concentrate in water and other feeds materials which are mixed manually. Photos of Eco-Life were downloaded from the company’s website.)
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