The Upcycled Broiler Blueprint: Optimizing Profitability and Animal Welfare with Spent Brewer’s Grain in Slow-Growth Poultry Systems.

Commodities

Practices

The greatest threat to the profitability and viability of high-welfare, pastured poultry operations is the cost of conventional feed. Producers committed to high-welfare standards, such as those meeting Global Animal Partnership (GAP) and Better Chicken Project (BCP) criteria, must rely on more expensive, slow-growth broiler breeds. This creates an economic ceiling. Simultaneously, local breweries generate massive volumes of Spent Brewer's Grain (SBG), an organic, protein-rich waste stream requiring disposal. There is a critical knowledge gap: no replicated study exists to determine the optimal inclusion rate of SBG to replace expensive feed supplements specifically for slow-growth broilers in a North Central environment. Solving this supply-chain inefficiency and waste-stream problem is essential for increasing the financial sustainability and market resilience of the high-welfare poultry sector.

The PI has been collecting and utilized SBG from two breweries for years as a treat for hog, and collects more than enough for this projects.

Research Design: A Controlled Trial utilizing a 4 x 3 design, replicated over two consecutive 12-week cycles (Batch 1: May-July 2026; Batch 2: Mid-June-September 2026). The same methodology has been used by the PI for the past eight years.

• Factors: 4 Feed Ratios x 3 Slow-Growth Broiler Breeds = 12 Treatment Groups per batch.
• Replication: x 2 batches total = 24 total data sets.

Treatments (Feed Ratios): Broilers will receive the standard protein percentages per growth period, 22% in the brooder, 19% grower rations, and 17% finisher rations The test feed ratios are:

1. Control (0% SBG): Standard mix, corn and supplement.
2. Low SBG (11% inclusion): SBG replaces 11% of the supplement.
3. Medium SBG (16% inclusion): SBG replaces 16% of the supplement.
4. High SBG (23% inclusion): SBG replaces 23% of the supplement.

Housing: 12 new, identical mobile chicken tractors (25 birds per tractor, 300 birds per batch) will be used to ensure strict separation of the 12 treatment groups. The tractors will be moved daily onto fresh pasture to ensure parasite management and maintain consistent forage conditions across all groups. Predator pressure will be mitigated using electrified poultry netting and a solar energizer funded by the grant.

Data Collection (Metrics):

This project will solve the feed cost and waste-stream problem through a controlled, comparative feeding trial. The solution is to identify the precise SBG inclusion rate that maintains broiler performance while maximizing profitability, resulting in a directly replicable feeding blueprint for other farmers.

Objectives:

1. Profitability: Establish the optimal inclusion rate of SBG (from the tested 11%, 16%, and 23% ratios) that maximizes Net Profit per Bird by reducing feed costs across three distinct slow-growth broiler breeds.
2. Stewardship: Divert a measurable volume of local brewery waste (SBG) into a high-value feed input, thereby closing the local nutrient loop and reducing the environmental footprint of both the farm and the breweries.
3. Knowledge Transfer: Develop a detailed, downloadable "Upcycled Broiler Blueprint" that allows other high-welfare producers to immediately adopt the optimal SBG feeding strategy determined by the research.