Simulation of weight gain and feed consumption of turkeys

Effective decision making in turkey production systems requires the prediction of future status of the system and evaluation of alternative management policies. To facilitate such decision making a simulation model of a turkey production system was developed to predict values of flock performance indicators of significant economic importance, namely body weight and feed consumption. The model simulates the effects of house thermal environment, feed energy, sex, and age on weight gain and feed consumption of growing turkeys. The model was validated using temperature, body weight and feed consumption data collected at a turkey farm in Virginia. The observed average bird weights at marketing age were within 95% confidence intervals of the predicted values. However, the model under-predicted feed energy consumption values. The model is more sensitive to feed energy concentration than other input parameters.