TYPES OF ANIMAL FEED AND NUTRITIONAL CONTENT
The importance of animal feed science for the success of your livestock business. For a farmer, it can be said that he is successful when he manages to build a large farm, has a lot of livestock, and has great results from there. Are you too?
Indeed, raising livestock is not as easy as it seems. It takes knowledge, experience, and true perseverance as a breeder and gives the best to the farms he owns. With it, you can run your farm better, grow rapidly and get the results you and other breeders want.
Regardless of the experience you have, for both an accomplished breeder and a novice breeder, one thing that cannot be seconded is knowledge of animal feed. Because this is very influential on the growth and development of your livestock.
With the right knowledge of feed, farmers can focus on what they want to improve, want to accelerate the growth of livestock, fattening, or maximizing and maintaining the quality of the livestock products.
ANIMAL FEED MATERIAL
There are many types of food ingredients that can be used for animal feed. But in general, animal feed ingredients are divided into 5 types, crude feed, fortification/concentrate feed, minerals, vitamins, and feed additives.
1. Coarse Feed
Coarse feed is feed that has a large volume but the weight of each unit volume is low. Foods that include coarse feed can come from forage, including:
- Grass, can be field grass, plant grass, grinding grass, bengal grass, kolonjono grass, tuton grass.
- Leguminous leaves.
- The rest of the crops such as straw, rice straw, soybean straw, corn straw, and peanut straw.
Animal feed derived from forage has a crude fiber content of about 18% but has a low energy content. Forage which is a good source of nutrition is forage that contains crude protein as much as 20% of the total dry matter such as legumes / nuts.
Also read: Nutritional Content and Benefits of Goat's Milk
Meanwhile, feed from crop residues, such as straw, only has a crude protein content of about 3 – 4% dry matter. From green forage that comes from quality leaves and grass, livestock such as cows can only produce 70% of their capacity.
However, crude feed is very necessary for ruminant livestock because it has high crude fiber which is needed to stimulate the rumen and determine milk fat content.
LEADING TYPE OF GRASS FOR GREEN FEED
1) Elephant Grass
Elephant grass is tolerant of various types of soil. Elephant grass can grow from lowlands to highlands, which is resistant to moderate environments, as well as sufficient rainfall, likes fertile clay soil, but is not resistant to inundation.
2) Bengal grass
This type of grass has perennial characteristics, its stems are strong and erect, and form clumps with roots forming deep fibers. It has green or purple flowers.
Bengal grass grows in the lowlands to highlands 0 – 1200 meters above sea level.
3) King's Grass
The development of king grass is usually done by stem cuttings or pols and is able to grow well in areas with light to heavy soil. Raja grass is able to live and grow in plains with an altitude of 0 – 3000 meters above sea level with an annual rainfall of 1000 meters or more.
The characteristics of king grass, among others, are single-leaf, stems are square and cylindrical, have fibrous roots, and grow in dry areas. Has a rough leaf structure, hard and thick stems. The shape of the leaves is long, with a broad leaf surface.
4) Mexican Grass
As the name suggests, this grass comes from Mexico and Central America. Which can live in wet tropics and also in subtropical areas with watery soil. And has the characteristics of leaves that are wider than other types of grass, with a leaf length of about 1.5 meters and a leaf width of about 10 centimeters.
Mexican grass can grow well in areas that have soil with medium or heavy structure, with a height of up to 1200 meters above sea level. As well as 2000 meters of rainfall per year.
5) Setaria grass
Setaria grass or often also known as Golden Timothy grass comes from Africa and has a parenial life cycle. Its characteristics grow to form a strong and dense clump, with broad and slightly hairy leaves on the upper surface.
Setaria grass when it is old enough, it can grow to a height of 180 centimeters. Has a character that is resistant to dry and stagnant environments. Can live in plains with an altitude of 1000 feet, with rainfall of 25 inches / year.
Oh yes, to make it easier to feed cow grass, you should use a grass chopper to reduce the size of the grass. The benefit is that the cow will easily digest the grass that will be consumed.
2. Strengthening Feed (Concentrate)
Reinforcement feed or also called concentrate is animal feed that has a low crude fiber content, below 18%. The main nutrients from concentrated feed are energy and protein. There are two different concentrates, namely concentrate as a source of energy and as a source of protein.
Concentrated energy sources are concentrates that have a protein content of less than 20%. In contrast, protein source concentrates are concentrates that have protein levels above 20%.
Concentrate is an animal feed ingredient that is given together with other animal feed ingredients to increase the nutritional content of animal feed mixed as complementary feed.
For dairy farmers, in order to maintain cow's milk production, the animal feed provided must be mostly concentrated animal feed. This is because cows fed only forage will produce 30% less milk than cows fed forage which is also supplemented with concentrate fodder.
Because, cows are not able to accommodate coarse feed in accordance with the energy needed. Therefore, to provide energy, it is necessary to add concentrate feed. Concentrated feed can come from,
From animals:
- Meat flour
- Meat and bone flour
- Blood powder
- Feather flour
- Worm flour
- The by-product of fish processing, namely fish meal
- Dairy processing by-products such as milk fat and skim milk powder.
Concentrated animal feed for animal feed is characterized by relatively large amounts of high quality protein, as well as a fairly high mineral content. Contains more than 47% protein, more than 1% Ca minerals, more than 1.5% P, and less than 2.5% crude fiber.
From plants:
- Agricultural crops such as soybeans, green beans, corn, and others.
- The rest of the agricultural industry such as coconut/palm oil cake, sesame meal, soybean meal, palm seeds, rubber seeds, tofu dregs, rice husk bran, and others.
Concentrated animal feed has a high energy and protein content. The groups with the highest content were corn, grains, sorghum, which had high SE and TDN, low crude fiber, moderate crude protein content, and varied mineral content.
Concentrated animal feed derived from plants has a protein content of 47%, minerals Ca less than 1%, P less than 1.5%, and crude fiber more than 2.5%. legund chicken feed too,
In order to achieve the desired target, the use of concentrated animal feed must pay attention to the following 2 things:
The provision of concentrated animal feed must pay attention to the nutritional needs of livestock, not to give too much concentrated animal feed because the concentrate is only a booster or additional feed to meet nutritional needs.
The provision of concentrated animal feed must be in accordance with the balance of the amount of production, milk or meat.
3. Fermented Feed
Fermented feed is the result of the ammonia process, or often also referred to as fermentation. The purpose of making fermented feed is to maximize the preservation of the nutritional content of forage feeds or other feed ingredients so that they can be stored for a long time and without reducing the amount of nutrients.
The nutritional and nutritional needs are fulfilled, then many positive effects are obtained. The quality of livestock is getting better which will definitely have an impact on the selling value of livestock.
By using the fermentation method, the provision of animal feed will be more efficient. As for the characteristics of the finished fermented feed, such as an increase in temperature, a change in color, and becoming more weathered/tender.
To know more about fermented animal feed, how to make your own fermented animal feed, and how to properly give it to your livestock, you can visit the article Fermented Animal Feed.
4. Mineral
Minerals or salt substances are needed for dairy cattle. Inorganic substances such as: Calcium, Potassium, Iron, Phosphate, Sodium, Magnesium, and others are all kinds of substances needed by the body of livestock.
Additional minerals are needed as additions to some animal feeds, but not all, because most of these minerals can be obtained from the feed ingredients provided. Therefore, it is very important to know the content of the animal feed provided, whether it is sufficient for the mineral needs of livestock or not.
5. Vitamin
Vitamins are very important for optimizing growth, and maintaining the natural function of the body system of farm animals.
There are two groups of vitamins needed by the body of livestock, namely water-soluble vitamins including vitamin B complex, B6, B12, C, biotin, kholin, inondol, niacin. And fat-soluble vitamins such as vitamins A, D, E, and K.
Indeed, only a small amount of vitamins are needed, but this cannot be ignored at all because not all animal feed ingredients contain complete vitamins, considering the risks of livestock, which if lack of vitamins can cause the animal's body to become weak, sick, and even die. .
6. Supplementary Feed
Is feed that is used only as an addition and not for staple consumption for livestock. The intended supplementary feed is a product that is not nutritious, but is useful for maintaining health, preventing disease, or curing livestock. Among them, antibiotics, anti-toxins, worm medicine, hormones, and others.
In self-administration of antibiotics, it is intended to modify the balance of bacteria in the digestive tract of livestock. The balance between beneficial bacteria and harmful bacteria will prevent a decrease in livestock production.
After knowing the 5 types of animal feed ingredients above, hopefully it can be useful and become additional information for you breeders who don't really understand the types of animal feed.
Well, if you want to know more about what types of cattle feed can increase the growth, development, and fattening of cattle in the right way and understanding, you can learn about it in the article on Cattle Feed.
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