Do you know the ingredients in a poultry feed concentrate formula? The major ingredients in an ideal ration, be it chick marsh, growers marsh, or layers marsh is as follows:

Poultry Feed Formula For Broiler And Layer (Calculation)

HOW TO CALCULATE THE COMPONENTS OF POULTRY FEED FORMULA

Here are the ingredients and their correct proportion in formulating broilers starter and for layer bird formulations too.

PREPARATION OF POULTRY FEED – SAMPLE

  • Yellow maize: provides vitamin A and carbohydrates.
  • White maize provides carbohydrates.
  • Rice bran: provides carbohydrates and acts as middlings.
  • Wheat offals: provide carbohydrates and act as middlings.
  • Guinea corn: provides carbohydrate
  • Palm kernel cake: provides lipids, vitamin, proteins
  • Coconut cake: provides lipids, vitamins, proteins.
  • Bean meal:  provides proteins, carbohydrates, lipids.
  • Groundnut cake: provides protein, lipids, vitamins.
  • Pigeon pea: provides protein, lipids, vitamins.
  • Bone meal: Provides minerals like calcium and phosphorus.
  • Oyster shell and grot: Minerals like calcium and phosphorus.
  • Blood meal: Provides protein, minerals like iron and copper.
  • Cottonseed meal: Provides protein, carbohydrate, vitamins, and lipids.
  • Linseed meal: Provides protein, carbohydrate, vitamins, and lipids.
  • Fish meal: Provides proteins, lipids, and vitamins.
  • Common salt or salt lick: Provides mineral salts like sodium, iodine, chlorine and so many others.

These are the major ingredients formulated in a poultry feed composition table.

GUIDE: FISH FEED FORMULA

POULTRY FEED INGREDIENTS RATIO

In the poultry farming business, feed is one of the major overhead costs. You can get poultry feeds by buying from reputable producers who produce what we call ‘factory processed or ready-made feeds’.

GUIDE: Trial And Error Feed Formula

These feeds are usually of excellent quality, containing all the relevant nutrients in the correct proportions required for the healthy growth and development of the chickens. However, many Nigerians think they are too costly.

An alternative, more cost-effective approach, is for you to compound your feed for your chickens. This is done by assembling the various feed ingredients in their right proportions and processing them at a miller’s.

However, your production cost will be determined by market conditions and factors such as the sources of purchase of the feed ingredients, cost of the feed ingredients, transport costs, your scale of purchases, the miller’s production costs, etc.

POULTRY FARMING BUSINESS PLAN FOR BEGINNERS

TOP POULTRY FEED PRODUCTION METHODS

To be able to produce a feed equal in quality to factory processed feeds, you must know the Compounded feed plan indicating the various feed ingredients and their formulation ratio(correct nutritional proportions) for the different stages of development in the chickens.

The objective here is that you can make more profits and spend much less on feeding the birds if you compound your feed for your chickens. If you decide to make use of the factory feeds, no problem. You will make a good profit too, no doubt.

GUIDE TO COMPOUNDING LAYERS AND BROILER FEED – CALCULATE

Layers

  • Starter Mash 0-8 weeks
  • Grower Mash 9-20 weeks
  • Layer mash 20 weeks to end of laying period

Broilers

  • Starter Mash 0-5 weeks
  • Finisher Mash 6-12 weeks

With the rising cost of poultry feeds, farmers rearing chickens are increasingly finding it difficult to make a profit from poultry keeping. While it is difficult for farmers to formulate feeds for hybrid chickens such as broilers and layers, they can do so for their indigenous chickens or dual-purpose breeds such as Kenbro under an intensive management system. This can be done using the Pearson square method.

However, this is only possible if farmers have the right quality of ingredients or raw material for formulating feeds. The Pearson Square method relies on the Digestible Crude Protein (DCP) as the basic nutritional requirement for feed. The most common ingredients used are whole maize, maize germ, cottonseed cake, soya beans, sunflower, or Omena (fishmeal).

HOW TO MAKE CHICKEN FEED

Example 1: Feed for Layers

Here is how to calculate one of the best formulae for layer feed:

Assuming that the farmer wants to make bulk organic feed for their chickens using this poultry feed formulation software: Pearson Square method, they have to know the crude protein content of each of the ingredients used in feed making.

The farmer may use whole maize (8.23 % DCP) Soya (45 % DCP) Omena (55 % DCP) and maize bran (7 % DCP) Sunflower (35 % DCP). To make a 70 kg bag of feed for layers, a farmer would require the following ingredients:

  • 34 kg of whole maize
  • 12 kg of Soya
  • 8 kg of Omena
  • 10 kg of maize bran
  • 6 kg of Lime (as a calcium source)

Each category of chickens has its requirements in terms of nutrition.

For example, feed for layers should have at least 18 percent crude protein.

If one were to formulate feed for layers, then they would have to calculate the percentage of digestible crude protein in each of the ingredients to ensure that the total crude protein content is at least 18 percent to meet this nutritional requirement.

To find out if the feed meets this standard, a farmer can do a simple calculation as follows:

Whole maize = 34 kg x 8.23 ÷100 = 2.80 kg
Soya bean = 12 kg x 45 ÷ 100 = 5.40 kg
Omena = 8 kg x 55 ÷ 100 = 4.40 kg
Maize bran = 10 kg x 7 ÷ 100 = 0.70 kg
Lime = 6 kg x 0 ÷ 100 = 0.00 kg
(Total crude protein 13.30 kg)

To get the total crude protein content of all these ingredients in a 70 kg bag, you take the total crude protein content of the combined ingredients, divide by 70 and multiply by 100 thus, (13.30÷70) x 100 = 19.0 %. This shows that the crude protein percentage in the above feed formulation is 19.0 % which is suitable for layers.

Before mixing the feed using a poultry feed mixer, whole maize including the other ingredients has to be broken into the right sizes through crushing with poultry feed milling equipment to make it palatable for the chickens.

Add 250 g of table salt to every 70 kg bag of feed.

FORMULA FOR MAKING BROILER FEED

Feed formula for Broiler – Broiler Starter Feed formulation

Do you know a good formula for making broiler feed? Chickens meant for meat production require feed with a higher content of DCP. From the first to the fourth week, the chicks require feed with a DCP content of between 22 to 24 percent.

From the fourth to the eighth week, the chicks require feed with a protein content of 21 to 22 percent crude protein.

To attain this requirement, farmers can formulate feed using the same method given above. To make a 70 kg bags of feed, they will need to have all the right ingredients in the proportions given below:

  • Whole maize = 40 kg x 8.23 ÷ 100 = 3.20 kg
  • Omena = 12 kg x 55 ÷ 100 = 6.60 kg
  • Soya beans = 14 kg x 45 ÷ 100 = 6.30 kg
  • Lime = 4 kg x 0 ÷ 100 = 0.00 kg
  • (Total crude protein 16.10 kg)

COMPOSITION OF POULTRY FEED

To determine if a 70 kg bag of feed has adequate crude protein content for birds meant for meat production, the same method is used: (16. 10 ÷ 70) x 100 = 23 %. The feed given in this example has a total crude protein content of 23% which is adequate to feed chicken in this category.

In every 70 kg bag of feed, add 250g of table salt. This is an animal feed formulation method that can be used as a model for other livestock and poultry species.

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DOWNLOAD: Practical Manual on Poultry Production for Starters