The first thing you have to do is to have a sound theoretical foundation in the science of feed formulation, in order to be able to competently derive ration formulas using any combination of feed ingredients.

Now, fundamental to your success in formulating and compounding rations that work for your animals will be determining what the nutrient requirements are for the target animal you have in mind.

Over the past week, I have taken phone calls from a Rabbit Farm CEO based in a Ghana, as well as a Contract Broiler Farm CEO based in India, on the subject of feed formulations.

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Tayo Solagbade’s
Performance Improvement IDEAS
(PI Squared) Newsletter

Monday 4th July 2016

NB: This PI Squared newsletter will be published weekly, on Mondays, in place of the Speaking/Web Marketing IDEAS newsletter, starting from today – 15th February 2016. I’m reinventing my Monday newsletter content and theme, to accommodate my vision of serving the growing audience of serious minded individuals and organizations reaching out to me, with information, education. news and research findings designed to help them do what they do better.

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PII 021: Proven Secret to Succeeding in Making Your Own Animal Feed

The first thing you have to do is to have a sound theoretical foundation in the science of feed formulation, in order to be able to competently derive ration formulas using any combination of feed ingredients.

Now, fundamental to your success in formulating and compounding rations that work for your animals will be determining what the nutrient requirements are for the target animal you have in mind.

Over the past week, I have taken phone calls from a Rabbit Farm CEO based in a Ghana, as well as a Contract Broiler Farm CEO based in India, on the subject of feed formulations.

The former has since gone on to purchase my Excel-VB Ration Formulator app and Feed Formulation Handbook. The latter, has expressed interest in doing the same thing.

But I bring my discussions with them up mainly to illustrate just how seriously a lot of Farm Business Owners take the subject of feed formulation for their livestock. The reason – as many of them will readily tell anyone who asks – is that 65 to 80% recurring expenditure on livestock farms goes to feeding of the animals.

This requirement makes it imperative for the farm owner who wishes to achieve and maintain long term profitability, to actively monitor the results s/he gets from feeding specific rations to the animas. And that will be done in comparison to the cost of making and serving such rations.

Most of them have found through hard experience that suppliers of commercial feed they depended on were not consistent in delivering feed with the desired nutrient profile – despite the high prices for their products. This meant the farm businesses were losing on multiple fronts, and ultimately unable to boost output and profitability.

What the smart thinking amongst such Farm CEOs decides to do is what I recommend that ALL results focused farm business owners do i.e. to TAKE OWNERSHIP CONTROL of making your own feed!

It does not mean you have to go borrow money you don’t have to install expensive feed milling equipment. That could be a long term goal you set for yourself. However in the short term, you simply need to find a reliable milling company and then send your optimized feed formulas there to have feed you derive bagged for use on your farm.

For as long as you carefully monitor how your feed is milled and bagged, from selection of QUALITY feed ingredients, down to actually production at the mills, you should have no problems getting the projected nutrients into the final feed you serve your animals. And their performance will show!

Note that I say all the above on the assumption and expectation that you WILL ensure you ration formulation computations are done – ALWAYS – using verified laboratory based analysis of feed ingredients used in the mills. And this should not be hard to achieve if the feed mill company you choose is diligent.

Standard best practice requires that they obtain laboratory nutrient analyses for the different batches of feed ingredients they stock and use.

So, in deriving the ration formulas you will have milled and bagged for you, the first thing you must always do is to get such results and punch the nutrient analyses results into your software. Without doing that, you would be wasting your time and shooting in the dark as far as ration formulation is concerned!

It goes without saying that the reason for that is obvious. You cannot do any sensible calculations about quantities of maize, soya beans, and wheat offals to mix together to achieve a desired feed nutrient profile, if you do not know, for starters what amounts of nutrients (e.g. protein, energy etc) each one contains!

Choosing to use textbook or estimated values would be like gambling. When dealing with farm production, depending on luck is never wise, and is likely to cost you more than it can ever yield in the long run.

In summary therefore, what I’m saying is that IF you want to succeed in making your own feed, the very first thing you need to do is GET YOURSELF very familiar with the science of practical feed formulation and compounding.

If you’re planning to use software for deriving your ration formulas, this becomes even more important – otherwise you’ll end up a victim of the “Garbage-In-Garbage-Out” syndrome.

For this reason I always recommend that prospective buyers of my Excel-VB Ration Formulator, if not proficient in feed formulation, also purchase and diligently study my Handbook on the subject.

It sells for $82 USD in my online store at
http://www.lulu.com/shop/tayo-solagbade/practical-livestock-feed-formulation-handbook/ebook/product-20817463.html

But you can get it for MUCH lower (specifically $35 USD) if you contact me directly and buy it along with the software: click here to do so now.

SDN Blog™

New posts from last week*

Monday:

[Tuesday]:

[Wednesday]:

[Thursday]:

[Friday]:

N/A

[Saturday]:

[Power Point Slideshow Explanation & Exercise Tip] How to Open a Website from MS Excel using ExcelVB code

[Sunday]:

THE FARM CEO (Issue 52): Five Essential Poultry Layer Farm Production Records, Five Powerful Tools for Accurately Measuring Your (Farm) Business’ Health, Five Proven Ways to Boost Farm Profits without Raising Prices