What follows below, are excerpts from my 30 page Annotated Pictorial Introduction to Feed Ingredients (N7, 500 value). I do NOT sell this report. ALL buyers of my feed formulations handbook (like the Farm CEO I sent a copy to in Abuja-Nigeria, just yester-night) get it as FREE i.e. as a GIFT!
In 2006, I launched a Cost-Saving Farm Business Ideas website as a precursor to my Farm Research and Extensions Advisory Services support centre.
That website became rapidly popular, drawing inquiries from with and well outside Africa (in the Middle East, Europe and America).
Since publishing my popular Feed Formulation Handbook in 2002, I have developed an automated MS-Excel Visual Basic driven Ration Formulation application that works based on the Pearson Square computation method described in my handbook.
That software came to being as a result of repeated requests from buyers of the handbook. Today, they often sell as a bundle.
In the course of relating with buyers and enquirers (including providing one-on-one practical coaching in feed formulation), I realized the need to provide a report like this, which will be periodically updated, as a quick guide/introduction to feed ingredients.
This document does NOT provide an exhaustive listing of feed ingredients used for all livestock.
What I have tried to do is focus on those main and more popular ones used frequently by most farmers and which are readily available in adequate quantities in the marketplace.
Where appropriate I have mentioned the need to explore potential alternative ingredients to certain high demand ones like Maize/Corn.
But I did not provide any details about those alternatives.
Instead, I plan to discuss potential alternative ingredients with potential to effectively replacing existing expensive or high demand ingredients, in a series of articles.
Below, is a clickable link to the first of such articles, published as a guest post on www.africabusinesscommunities.com.
Read my article titled at http://tayosolagbade.com/sdnuggets/reducing-catfish-feeding-costs-a-secret-weapon.
It’s published in FULL as a guest post on www.africabusinesscommunities.com in 2 parts:a.Reducing Catfish Feeding Costs (A Secret Weapon) – Part 1 of 2
b. Reducing Catfish Feeding Costs (A Secret Weapon) – Part 2 of 2
To get a complete and FREE PDF version of the above linked article with clickable URLs to many useful reports, publication and websites that offer even more data, send an email to tayo at tksola.com. This offer is ONLY for owners of the feed formulations handbook.
A Note on Feed Mixing
In the process of actually carrying out the feed compounding, most of the ingredients mentioned in the foregoing discourse – if in solid form – are usually ground using a Grinder and thoroughly mixed using a Mixer.
However, for ingredients like Oyster shell, bone meal, meat meal etc, they are milled using a Mechanical Miller before being mixed with the rest of the ingredients.
Poultry feeds can be prepared as mash, crumbs or as pellets. Pellets production is not very common for poultry, and requires the extra effort of adding fat under high temperature and pressure, so as to concentrate the nutrients/constitute the mash into particles. – See page 54 of my handbook.
Learn how you can purchase the Feed Formulation Handbook and Software on my Cost-Saving Farm Business Ideas website (click).