Familiarity with poultry nutrition and its widely used words and their meanings

The science of nutrition involves providing a balance of nutrients that best meets the animals needs for growth, maintenance, egg production, etc. For economic reasons, this supply of nutrients should be at least cost, and so we must supply only enough for requirements, without there being any major excesses. It is very difficult and very expensive to supply all nutrients at the exact nutrient needs, rather we have to oversupply some nutrients in practical situations, in an attempt to meet the limiting nutrients. In poultry diets, these limiting nutrients are usually energy and some of the essential amino acids, such as methionine and lysine. In formulating diets, the following nutrients are considered as energy, protein, fat, vitamin, minerals, and water. With the exception of water, these nutrients are provided by the ingredients that make up the diet which are classified as cereals, animal proteins, vegetable proteins, vegetable fat, animal fat, micro mineral, macro mineral, and vitamin premixes. Each of these separate types of ingredient provides a specific quantity and quality of nutrients to the diet. Balancing these ingredients to produce the diet formulation (recipe) relies on the skill of the nutritionist.