Poultry feed takes up about 80% of the total cost expense of a poultry business project, it mostly consists of grains, seed cakes, by−products got after milling grains and each material has its own role it plays in the feed mixture. These materials fall in categories such as carbohydrate sources, protein sources, energy sources, mineral sources, additives and premix in poultry feeds. These materials are supposed to be correctly calculated, formulated and mixed to attain maximum benefits and production.
Here are some of the major common poultry feed raw materials and their purposes.
Protein sources
First on my list is soya bean meal, it is high in protein content and it requires to undergo a lot of preparations before you have it fed to our poultry. All these preparations aim at removing the anti-nutritional components and excess fat to be suitable for poultry consumption.
Next are the sunflower seedcake and cotton seedcake derived from sun flower seeds and cotton seeds after undergoing oil extraction respectively. These materials can easily be attained from oil manufacturing factories.
Other protein sources include, fish meal, groundnut cake, sesame meal, palm meal.
Carbohydrate sources
Whole maize which has to be broken down using a mill, it can not be fed to chickens as a whole seed without mashing it to the right size suitable for poultry for digestibility and absorption in the gut.
Maize bran can also be used for fiber source and it’s a milling product got from the hard outer maize layer and it’s easily accessible in maize milling factories.
Wheat bran which is a byproduct attained while milling for wheat flour from wheat grains, they are simply wheat husks and are light weight. This being a byproduct, it is completely affordable and low priced.
Wheat pollard is simply a powdery fine highly valuable byproduct got on further milling for wheat flour and due to its high fiber content it’s not recommended to be fed to very young chicks.
Other carbohydrate sources include, sorghum, millet.
Mineral sources
These are added to feeds and are very useful when it comes to bone formation, beaks, claws, egg shells and scales. For example, salt that provides sodium and calcium, limestone for calcium which is very crucial for egg shells, the bone meal and Dicalcium phosphate (DCP) for calcium as well.
The fiber sources
Barley and oats are suitable sources for crude fiber in poultry feed formulations.
The energy sources
Whole maize is the most predominant feed grain used in poultry due to its high starch content and high palatability.
The additives
These are added in very small quantities such as antibiotics, acidifiers, probiotics, antioxidants, the coccidiostat used to control coccidiosis and then the toxin binder which destroys any contaminants present in other feed materials used to mix the poultry feed.
The premix
This is basically a complex mixture of a variety of things like vitamins, trace elements, minerals, amino acids, phosphorous, enzymes such as lysine, methionine and phytate, which are necessary for breaking down proteins.
