NUT 115 Winter 2025 Week 2 Background - Feed Ingredients

NUT 115 – Winter 2025 – Week 2 Background Week 2 lab - Feed ingredients, classification and ration mixing Introduction:  There are numerous feed ingredients (feedstuffs) that are used in animal feeds. Due to their different physical and chemical characteristics, they are usually process...

NUT 115 – Winter 2025 – Week 2 Background Week 2 lab - Feed ingredients, classification and ration mixing Introduction:  There are numerous feed ingredients (feedstuffs) that are used in animal feeds. Due to their different physical and chemical characteristics, they are usually processed and combined into uniform and well mixed diets in order to provide animals with a diet that fulfills all their nutritional requirements. Learning objectives:  Identify commonly used feedstuffs in ruminant and nonruminant diets  Describe the nutrient content of commonly used feedstuffs  Categorize feedstuffs based on their nutrient composition and energy value  Feedstuff Classification:  Feedstuffs can usually be classified into one of the following categories: Forages/roughages Concentrates Supplements Additives Fresh Dry Ensiled Protein Energy Minerals Vitamins FORAGES/ROUGHAGES: Practically speaking the terms “forage” and “roughage” are often used interchangeably. They are referred to plant materials that are high in fiber (> 18% crude fiber), low in energy, bulky and variable in protein content. They are typically fed to ruminants and hindgut fermenters. Forage: A vegetable material in a fresh, dried or ensiled state.  Fresh – Living plant material above the ground. Quality depends on rainfall, stage of maturity, soil fertility and level of grazing. High in moisture: Can contain up to 85% moisture content.  Examples: Mixed-grass pastures grazed by ruminants and horses  Dry –Dried forage material that can be transported and stored for a long time.  Examples: alfalfa hay, timothy hay, oat hay  Ensiled – fermented forage (i.e. “pickled forage”) that can be preserved for a long time. Made from high moisture crops that have been chopped, compacted and stored in airtight structures and preserved by acids produced during the fermentation.  Examples: corn silage, wheat silage, barley silage, alfalfa silage Page 1 of 7  NUT 115 – Winter 2025 – Week 2 Background Roughages (Harvest/Crop residues) – material left over in the field after harvesting the main crop. Typically contain higher fiber content and lower quality than forages.  Examples: corn stalks, corn stover, wheat straw, oat straw CONCENTRATES: Feedstuffs high in starch, sugars or fat and high digestibility while low in crude fiber (< 18%). Can be utilized by both ruminants (e.g., cattle, sheep, goat) and nonruminants (e.g., poultry, horses, cats and dogs) due to low fiber content.  Energy concentrates: feedstuffs that are used for their high energy content. Have TDN (total digestible nutrient) contents higher than 70%. Usually 70% TDN), but are mainly fed for their high protein content. They contain >20% crude protein.  Examples: Plant origin – oilseed meals (i.e., oil removed): soybean meal, cottonseed meal, sunflower seed meal, peanuts.  Examples: Animal protein sources – meat and bone meal, blood meal and fish meal, poultry litter, feather meal, whey.  Examples: Synthetic protein such as urea SUPPLEMENTS (premixes): They are fed to help ensure the animal's vitamin and mineral needs are met.  Mineral supplements – limited to 1-2% of a balanced diet. Macro minerals (salt, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sulfur) and micro minerals (copper, iron, iodine, zinc, cobalt)  Examples: Synthetic (calcium carbonate, dicalcium phosphate) or natural (oyster shell, bone meal, limestone)  Vitamin supplements – No more than 1% of diet. Expensive and not widely used. FEED ADDITIVES: Non-nutritive products (do not supply nutrients) that are added to diets, in small quantities, to improve rate and/or efficiency of weight gain, prevent diseases and preserve feeds or enhance the flavor of rations to maintain intake  Examples: Buffers, enzymes, antioxidants, antibiotics or flavorings such as citrus powder MISCELLANEOUS FEEDSTUFFS It does happen sometimes that a feedstuff do not belong to a specific feedstuff category, or belong to more than one simultaneously. These include various plant-based by-products from agriculture or food production. Because of their relatively high fiber content (compared to common energy and protein concentrates), they are more suitable for feeding to ruminants and/or hind gut fermenters. Page 2 of 7  NUT 115 – Winter 2025 – Week 2 Background Examples: whole cottonseed, almond hulls, citrus pulp, cottonseed hulls, soy hulls, wheat bran, beet pulp, etc. Where to look for nutrient composition of feedstuffs? There are several resources that provides the average nutrient specifications for common feedstuffs used in animal feeds.  NRC Publications: National Research Council (NRC) has published several books on nutrient requirements for various species. These books also include “Feed Tables” containing nutrient and energy values of common feedstuffs. Example NRC Books: Dairy cattle NRC; Swine NRC; Horse NRC  Online resources/websites Examples:  INRAE – CIRAD – AFZ (https://www.feedtables.com)  Feedipedia – Animal feed resources information system (https://www.feedipedia.org/node/71)  Ingredients101.com (https://www.ingredients101.com/specification.htm)  PoultryHub (http://www.poultryhub.org/nutrition/feed-ingredients/)  Another resource for feedstuff chemical composition is University Extension Websites. Example: Typical composition of feeds for cattle and sheep Feedstuff Processing:  Commonly done on grains (corn, barley, oats, milo, etc.).  Processing generally improves digestibility of grains, either by decreasing particle sizes or increasing the surface area open and available to the digestive enzymes or fermentation microbes in the animal digestive system.  Processing of feedstuffs occur for several reasons and in a number of different ways:  Cold processing  Grinding – feed is battered with hammers through a milling screen of certain size, grinding the feed into tiny particles (almost dust like) depending on the screen size  Rolling – Grain is flattened by a set of rollers through which it is cracked open  Thermal processing  Steam flaking/steam rolling – heat gelatinizes the starch in grains such as corn which is then pressed into a flake form. Note: Gelatinized starch is more digestible Page 3 of 7  NUT 115 – Winter 2025 – Week 2 Background Hammer mill Roller mill Steam flaked grains Feedstuff Mixing:  Adequate mixing of ingredients ensures all animals receive the same uniform ration.  Feed mills can mix large quantities of feed at once using accurate scales that can weigh of small quantities of supplements and additives while mixing them into the feed thoroughly. However, feed mills cannot handle bulky feed such as hay or wet feeds such as silages and wet distillers’ grains, which make them useful to create dry feed mixes (complete diets) for nonruminant animals such poultry and swine (that do not require these difficult ingredients), but not for complete ruminant rations (e.g., dairy cows and feedlot cattle). Page 4 of 7  NUT 115 – Winter 2025 – Week 2 Background  Therefore, rations designed for ruminant animals, especially dairy cows, are usually mixed on the farm by large mixer wagons designed to handle the wet and bulky ingredients. However, these mixer wagons do not have very accurate scales and can only mix large quantities of feeds. It is therefore common to purchase a premix of mineral supplements and any desired additives from the feed mill to add as an ingredient during the on-farm mixing process.  Large commercial dairies mix their rations, called total mixed rations (TMR) from scratch every day, immediately before each feeding. Sometimes a premix containing the dry ingredients (e.g., almond hulls, oat hay, steam flaked corn grain, cracked cottonseed, mineral premix) is mixed the previous day to speed up the morning mixing.  Each morning, other large-scale ingredients (e.g., alfalfa hay, silages, canola meal, dried distillers’ grains etc.) are brought up by a front-end loader and mixed with the premix in a large commercial mixer wagon (see pictures below). Front end loader dumps ingredients into the mixer wagon, which will then drop the TMR at the pens. Page 5 of 7  NUT 115 – Winter 2025 – Week 2 Background Mixer wagons drop the TMR onto the feed bunk in front of the cows.  Ingredient loading sequence for TMR:  The manufacturer of the mixer wagon used on the farm will usually recommend the most desirable ingredients’ order to prepare the TMR.  Heavier ingredients will “sink” while lighter ingredients will “float”  Add low density feeds (hay) before high density feeds (silage and minerals)  In general, the following mixing protocol should always be considered:  Long hay should go in first to be processed Total mixing time should be monitored however, to prevent the particle lengths from becoming too short and fine.  Add grains or premixes  Follow with ingredients incorporated in small quantities (e.g., vitamins and minerals)  Forages that do not need processing (e.g., silages) Dry and small particles will stick to high-moisture ingredients such as silages or molasses. It should be properly mixed before adding wetter ingredients  Liquid feedstuffs (e.g., molasses or whey) should be the last ingredient added  The following video show diet mixing on-farm (TMR): Video: On-farm mixing - total mixed ration (TMR) Page 6 of 7  NUT 115 – Winter 2025 – Week 2 Background  Types of mixer wagons for mixing and distributing total mixed ration (TMR) Vertical mixer: Horizontal mixer:  Vertical auger, with one, two or three  Horizontal auger, containing between one and five augers used to move the contents from augers, used to circulate the contents from front to bottom to the top. back and bottom to top.  The order of added ingredients is  Does not require feed to be added in any important – bulky feed first (e.g. hay), particular order followed by heavier/dense ingredients  Have more moving parts and are therefore more and then liquid feedstuff (e.g., complex molasses)  Easy to overfill, which can cause the feed to  A simpler design, thus less can go barrel roll and break components wrong  Feed needs to be the right size – too large or  More consistent in the quality of the mix long stems will cause problems – processing of produced roughage is essential  Hard to overfill due to the way it mixes Vertical auger Horizontal auger. 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