Owing to the high cost of feed for poultry, there is continuous pressure to formulate ‘least-cost’ diets that meet nutritional requirements. However, the main aim of any commercial enterprise is usually to maximize profits with the resources or inputs available, and the conventional or historic tool of least-cost ration formulation has limitations in a more demanding economic environment. The layer industry may experience particularly volatile changes in egg price, principally owing to changes in supply rather than demand, and in the past, it has been reported to possess less production and financial data reporting than other industries. Thus, increased flexibility during these uncertain times may give the layer industry greater opportunity and capacity to cope with market fluctuations. A practical example of how a laying hen operation may benefit from these approaches demonstrates that the maximum-profit solution does not always match the least-cost solution and that stochastic feed formulation may be used to accurately assign safety margins and define the level of certainty this safety margin will provide. Finally, as producers better understand how their hens respond to different dietary specifications, the opportunity arises to choose the set of specifications that result in maximum profits for their unique situations, rather than relying on least-cost diets formulated to nutrient requirements alone.

由于家禽饲料成本高昂，因此不断需要制定满足营养要求的“最低成本”日粮。但是，任何商业企业的主要目标通常是利用可用的资源或投入使利润最大化，而在成本要求更高的经济环境中，制定最低成本的定量配给的传统或历史性工具存在局限性。蛋鸡行业的鸡蛋价格可能会出现特别不稳定的变化，这主要是由于供应的变化而不是需求的变化，在过去，据报道与其他行业相比，蛋鸡的生产和财务数据报告较少。因此，在这些不确定的时期内增加的灵活性可以为蛋鸡行业提供更大的机会和能力来应对市场波动。蛋鸡生产如何从这些方法中受益的一个实际例子表明，最大利润的解决方案并不总是与最小成本的解决方案匹配，并且随机饲料配方可用于准确分配安全裕度并确定确定性水平安全余量将提供。最后，随着生产者更好地了解母鸡对不同饮食规格的反应，出现了选择适合自己情况的，能带来最大利润的规格集的机会，而不是仅仅依靠满足营养需求的成本最低的饮食。