In poultry farming, feeding your birds with quality feeds remains the best way to ensure quality, meat and egg production. Infact, quality feeding determines a successful business.
Feeds account for 80% expenses in poultry farming. So why don’t you learn how to make poultry feed at home and cut costs by combining nutri-rich ingredients to ensure the production of high quality poultry feed ?.
In poultry farming, inappropriate feeding of quality feeds will surely affect your birds in a negative way. To avoid your birds looking malnutrished, unhealthy and producing low quality eggs, it’s very important you feeds your birds well and with nutri-rich feeds.
Feeds play a very vital role to your birds. When your birds feeds on high quality feeds, they tend to grow faster, and lay quality sizable eggs. This will positively affected your poultry farming business, which will yeild you lots of return when the birds reaches marketing stage.
What I’m I saying? Quality feeds ensures quality meat and egg, so therefore as a poultry farmer who aims for a successful business and to earn huge income, you have to ensure you feed your birds with high quality feeds, rich with high nutritional value.
Alot of commercial feeds sold in the market today are not all they claim to be. Some don’t even contains vitamins which boosts egg production, while some have eventually reduced their feed quality value but still sells their feeds at the same price, just to extort farmer.
Chicken feed expenses has driven alot of farmers out of poultry farming business. Which has made me go into deep research to gather some information on how to manufacture high quality poultry feeds at home to cut costs and save some money.
Farmer who produces their own feeds never regrated doing so, infact they wished they learnt how it’s done right from the onset. So many commercial feeds sold out there are adulterated. This has made so many farmers seek for guidance on how to make their own poultry feeds.
So if you’re planning the venture into poultry farming business or you’re already into the business and you wish to hit it big, then feeding your birds well is what you should really take serious. Not just feeding your birds well, but ensuring you feed them with feeds with high quality and nutrient-rich.
Poor quality feeds lead to a slow growth in chickens, low egg production, diseases or even death. Making poultry feeds on the farm is one of the best ways to maintain quality and cut the cost of production.
So, are you a poultry farmer? Have you been spending lots of money on feeds?. Do you want to learn how to make poultry feed at home yourself?
or are you planning to go into the business but wants to learn how to manufacture high quality poultry feeds? Then this article is strictly for you.
In this very article, I’m going to detail out full guidelines on how to make poultry feed at home (high quality) to ensure your birds grows faster, looks healthy and produce healthy, quality sizable eggs.
The common ingredients for feed production are whole maize, maize germ, groundnut cake, soya beans, fish meal (omena) and limestone (as a calcium source)
In addition, farmers need to add several feed additives (micronutrients, minerals and vitamins) to ensure their chicken have a balanced feed that meets their daily nutrient requirements.
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How To Make Poultry Feed At Home (High Quality).
Broilers have different feed requirements in terms of energy, proteins, and minerals during different stages of their growth.Therefore, it is important that farmers adapt feed rations to these requirements for maximum production.
Young broilers need a high protein requirement for the development of muscles, feathers, etc. As the broilers grow, their energy requirements for the deposit of fat increase and their protein requirements decrease.
Broilers require high protein content in their starter rations than in the grower and finisher rations. Broilers should have a feed that has between 22 – 24% digestible crude protein, DCP.
Below are the following guidelines that can help the farmer to make the right feed at each stage of growth for broilers:
Formula for 100kg of Broiler starter feed (1-4 weeks).
- 57.2kg of whole maize
- 17.2kg of fishmeal
- 20kg of soya bean meal
- 5.8kg of limestone (a calcium source)
- 140g of premix (e.g Vitamin and minerals, toxin binder, and growth enhancers)
Amino acids to add.
- 70g of lysine
- 70g of threonine
Formula for 100kg of Broiler finisher feed (4weeks).
Option 1.
- 44Kg Maize
- 34Kg Soybean Full Fat
- 2kg Groundnut Cake
- 12Kg Brewer Dry Grain
- 4kg Maize Offal
- 3Kg Bone Meal
- 0.25Kg or 250 grams Methionine
- 0.25Kg or 250 grams Lysine
- 0.25kg or 250 grams Vitamin/Mineral Premix
- 0.25Kg or 250 grams Salt
You should add 10-20grams each of toxin binder, coccidiostat and growth enhancers like zinc bacitracin.
The above feed formula contain metabolisable energy of Kcal/Kg=3038.80, calcium content of 1.19% and crude protein of 21.05%.
Option 2.
- 14.5kg of whole maize
- 24kg of maize germ
- 19kg of wheat pollard
- 14.4kg wheat bran
- 16kg of beniseed meal, groundnut cake, linseed meal, or cotton seed meal.
- 2.2kg of fishmeal
- 2.8kg of limestone
- 5kg of soya meal
- 90g of bone meal
- 20g of grower premix
- 30g of salt
- 10g of coccidiostat
- 10g of Zinc bacitracin
Formulating Layers’ Feed.
Formula For 100kg Of Layers’ Chick Mash (1-4 Weeks).
Since the chicks are growing, chicks require feed with Digestible Crude Protein (DCP) of between 18 to 20%.
Amino acids are important nutrients in all feeds in order to make a complete feed for all animals. For hybrid chickens, the addition of amino acids is very important to maintain a balanced diet for fast growth.
The following ingredients can be used to make a 100kg bag of layer chick mash:
- 46kg of whole maize
- 13kg of wheat bran,
- 10kg of wheat pollard,
- 25kg of sunflower meal,linseed meal, beniseed meal or groundnut cake
- 2.6 kg of fishmeal
- 2.5 kg of limestone
- 70g of salt
- 40g of premix
- Amino acids to be added
- 140g of tryptophan
- 20g of lysine
- 20g of methionine
- 140 g of threonine
- 100g of enzymes or growth enhancers
- 120g of coccidiostat
- 100g of toxin binder
Formula For 100kg Of Layers’ Grower Mash (4-18weeks).
it is very necessary that pullets should be provided with a feed having a protein content between 16%-18%. Such feed makes the pullet to grow fast and prepare for egg laying.
The Following Ingredients Can Be Used To Make A 100kg Bag Of Layer Chick Mash:
- 14.3kg of whole maize
- 24.3kg of maize germ
- 18.6kg of wheat pollar
- 14.3kg of wheat bran
- 15.7kg of sunflower cake, groundnut cake or beniseed meal.
- 4.9kg of soya meal or soya cake
- 2.9kg of limestone
- 1kg of bone meal
- 4.3kg of fishmeal
- 40g of salt
- 5g of coccidiostat
- 30g of Pre-mix
- 5g of zinc bacitracin
- 10g of toxin binder.
Formula For 100kg Of Layers’ Mash (18weeks And Above).
Note: Layers’ feed should never be fed to chickens younger than 18 weeks as it contains high calcium content that can damage their kidneys (they can develop kidney stones), which interfere with egg production and also shorten their lifespan.
Alternatively, you can start feeding your birds with layers mash when they start laying 5% of their total number.
The following ingredients can be used to make 100kg bag of layer mash
Option 1.
- 48.5kg of whole maize
- 17kg of Soya
- 11kg of fishmeal
- 14kg of maize bran, rice germ or wheat bran
- 9.5kg of limestone
- 200g premix or growth or egg production enhancers
- Amino acids to be added
- 100g lysine
- 50g methionine
- 100kg threonine
- 50g tryptophan
- 75g toxin binder
Option 2.
- 59kg Maize grains
- 20kg Soybean meal
- 6Kg Groundnut cake
- 4kg Rice Bran or wheat offals
- 5kg Bone meal
- 5kg Limestone
- 200g of Methionine
- 200g of Lysine
- 200g of Vitamin and mineral Premix
- 200g of Salt
- 100g of Toxin binder
- 100g of Layers mix
Total=100kg
Note: Layer feed should contain a Digestible Crude Protein (DCP) content of between 16-18%.
Calcium is important for the formation of eggshells (Laying hens that do not get enough calcium will use the calcium stored in their own bone tissue to produce eggshells which will lead to lameness). Layer feed should be introduced at 18 weeks.
Important Tips On Feed Preparation.
When making home made feed rations, it is important to do experimental trials. Isolate a number of chickens, feed them and observing their performance. If the feed rations are right, the broilers will grow fast and the layers will increase egg production (at least 1 egg after every 27 hours).
Farmers should be very careful with the quality of feed ingredients or raw materials. Poultry, especially chickens are very sensitive to feeds that contain mycotoxins which are present in most of the raw materials. Never use rotten maize to make chicken feed.
Buy quality fishmeal from reputable companies. If local fish meal is used, you must be sure of its quality.
It is very important to mix all the micronutrients (amino acids) and premix first before mixing with the rest of the feed.
For mixing, farmers are advised to use a drum mixer (manywelding artisans can make one). I will not advise using a shovel to mix feed because the ingredients may be unevenly distributed if you didn’t mix properly. Use a mechanical mixer instead.
Never use rotten ingredients to make feed. Rotten materials might contain mycotoxins which are harmful to poultry health.
Small scale farmers in coperatives or in same location can contribute money together to buy feed ingredients in large quantities. This is because when you buy ingredients like maize in large quantity cost price reduces. They can also pull funds together to buy locally fabricated feedmill machines.
Note: To improve on the feed quality, farmers making their own poultry feeds should always have it tested to ensure the feed is well balanced. You can take your feed samples to agro-allied laboratories for testing to ensure the feeds are balanced nutritionally.
Daily feed requirements for each growth stage
Farmers should maintain the right feed quantities for chicken at each stage of growth as shown below:
An egg-laying chicken requires 130-140g of feed per day.
A chick requires a minimum 60g per day. If they finish their daily rations, give them fruit and vegetable cuttings to ensure they feed continuously.
Young chickens (or pullets) which are about to start laying eggs should be fed 60g for 2 and ½ months and then put on layer diet (140g per day). Supplement the feed with vegetables, edible plant leaves and fruit peelings in addition to their feed rations.
Broiler chicks require 67g per day. Broiler finishers require 67g of feed per day to the day of slaughter.
Chickens are very sensitive to aflatoxins- never use rotten maize (maozo) while making feeds.
In Conclusion
Since feed plays a very vital role, It’s very essential to ensure you feed your poultry birds with high quality feeds. Feeding your birds with low quality feed will reduce the daily development of the birds which will negatively affect your poultry farm business. Making your own poultry feed at home will help you cut more costs and also keeps you ensured on how quality and well enriched the feed is.
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