Dr. Uday Patel
Leading Consultant for Dairy,
Poultry & Aqua Nutrition
We have seen lot of volatility in ingredients availability for animal feeds in last 5 years. There are multiple reasons which can explained the scenario.
- Production volume in India and globally. (GMO Vs non-GMO)
- Gradual stable increase in demand for feed.
- Use of grains and oil seeds for alternate fuel like ethanol and biodiesel.
- Resource sharing between human food and animal feeds.
These challenges lead to industry experimenting with alternate ingredients from standard Corn-Soy meal diet.
Energy source:
With global energy crisis due rapid consumption of limited fossil fuel sources, alternative fuel source like ethanol and biodiesel production growing very fast. While ethanol is mainly produced from sugar and starch, biodiesel produced from vegetable and animal fats. In both cases again it competes with energy resources for animal feeds.
On average every 10-ton grain processed for alcohol will produce 370 litre of alcohol and 3.5 tons of DDGS. And every 100 lit oil/fat processed for biodiesel produce 90 lit biodiesel and 10 lit glycerines.
Millets (Bajra, Ragi, Jowar), wheat and broken rice grown mainly for human food, but always available for animal feed when not fit for human consumption. The table below explains nutritive value of these. Inclusion can be total replacement with the use of ingredient matrix and depends on quality of grain for fungal toxins in millets, rancidity of fat in broken rice and tannin levels in jowar.
Protein Source:
Soy meal is most studied ingredient with digestibility, amino acids, and anti-nutritional factors. But under shortage against demand alternatives are many as listed in table. The best alternatives are those which are rich in energy, CP and amino acids like rice and corn distilleries and starch industry by products. Besides, other oil seed meals like rapeseed, ground nut, sesame, cottonseed, and guar are available at better price for poultry feeds. Depending upon proximate and toxin levels judiciously can be used from 1-6% in broiler and layer diet without affecting performance.
