Thank you, Aaron for clearing the air on the chicken blood.

I will take a stab at answering why is chicken blood in there without
having any first hand knowledge from Purina.

Proteins are made up of amino acids.  Different proteins supply different
amino acid profiles.  Some proteins will have more of x amino acid while
others will have more of y.  The animal may be able to make some amino
acids from what they eat.  There are other amino acids they cannot
formulate that they need to eat.  These amino acids that the animal cannot
formulate are called essential amino acids.  They must be supplied in the
feed.  There are 10 for honey bees.

I would imagine that the chicken blood is a good supply of many of these
essential amino acids.  Chicken blood is very expensive, so would not be
added unless it was needed.

When thinking about the animal (bees) making the protein, remember proteins
make up body tissues like muscle, and proteins drive a lot of the body
functions because they are enzymes which are what make a lot of the
chemical reactions in the body work.  Raising brood is extremely protein
intensive.

When making these proteins, think of the amount of usable proteins as a
barrel with lots of staves.  Each stave is an amino acid amount available
to the bee.  If one amino acid is available at 10% of the amount needed,
the amount of usable protein is limited to 10% of the level available if
all amino acids were present in proper ratios.  The barrel leaks as soon as
the protein level gets to 10%.  If that amino acid was present, the animal
could make more protein up to the level of the next limiting amino acid.
Animal blood or chicken blood is good at providing essential amino acids
and filling in these low staves.

Having chicken blood in there makes sense to me and raises my confidence
over just seeing distillers and yeast.

Chris


-- 
Christopher J Cripps, DVM
Betterbee
8 Meader Rd
Greenwich, NY 12834
800-632-3379 ext 8001
518-290-3168 direct line, fax and text
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