Press release

Kaiseraugst, CH, 11 Mar 2016 09:00 CET

DSM announces the launch of a new app for its 2016 Vitamin Supplementation Guidelines, which help to define the right level of vitamins for 8 groups of farmed and companion animal species. The guidelines also reflect the many factors influencing animals’ feed requirements, ensuring that vitamin fortification does not limit performance.

Optimum Vitamin Nutrition™ (OVN™) is centred on enabling livestock producers, and pet owners, to feed animals high quality vitamins in the right amounts and ratios, fitting to their life stage and growing conditions. In practice, OVN is a cost-effective range of vitamin supplementation that optimizes animal health, well-being, performance and the quality and nutritional value of animal-origin foods.

The importance of vitamins to animal performance and animal health and wellbeing has long been known, but discussion of basic vitamin levels continues to this day, influenced by a variety of scientific, commercial and practical considerations.

Gilberto Litta, Global Category Manager Vitamins Animal Nutrition & Health at DSM Nutritional Products, commented: “Vitamins are the foundation of balanced nutrition; boosting the immune system and supporting growth and development. Reviewed every 4 to 5 years, DSM’s Vitamin Supplementation Guidelines provide an ongoing summary of best industry practice in meeting the vitamin needs of animals under commercial production. They take into account advances in genetics, improvements in husbandry conditions in feeding practices, including those driven by the regulator.”

He adds: “All ingredients in animal feed are regularly evaluated and vitamin levels and ratios require the same degree of attention. We therefore encourage the feed industry and all other stakeholders to always check the vitamin levels in their animal feed.”

Recent research on vitamin requirement of modern farm animals under current husbandry conditions is limited. As clinical and subclinical vitamin deficiency can still occur, OVN can be used to prevent deficiency, exploit the genetic performance potential of livestock, and improve disease resistance, welfare and product quality.

The app is available to download for free from the iTunes and Google Play stores.

To access DSM’s Vitamin Supplementation Guidelines 2016 and to find more information on OVN online, please visit: www.dsm.com/ovn.