Additional training – Introduction to the event

This lecture is designed to give an overview about formulation of poultry feed. Feed is the greatest cost of poultry production and formulation is at the "heart" of producing poultry profitably. Skilled formulating nutritionists produce formulations that meet both target animal and customer needs for efficient production of meat and eggs at lowest cost. Formulation requires an understanding about nutrients and ingredients that was learned in the basic poultry nutrition lecture. On completion of this formulation lecture you will have an understanding about computer-based approaches to formulating diets and how the software works. You will know where to find the nutrient requirements for various classes of broilers and laying hens and know the importance of understanding nutrient requirements for diet formulation. Students are encouraged to try a range of software packages to develop an ability to formulate feed and be aware that using diet formulation software is an essential skill for anyone producing formulations for poultry. Feed formulation requires inputs such as ingredient costs, nutrient levels in ingredients and the requirement for nutrients for the specific animal being fed. Because of limited availability or presence of antinutritional factors, the inclusion of certain ingredients may need to be constrained or limited. The outputs of feed formulation are the actual recipe or formulation, its cost, the relative cost of each nutrient in the formula, the rejected ingredients, and the binding nutrients. Sometimes a formulation is "not feasible". This usually means that a nutrient has not been offered at a level sufficient to meet its requirements. It is up to the formulator to find out what the problem is and make the formulation feasible. This can sometimes take hours for the inexperienced formulator but in the process the person gains valuable experience. The simplest way to formulate feed is with a spreadsheet and trial and error using a few critical nutrients. However the Excel "Solver" add-in can be used to optimize a formula to much greater ease. This is incorporated into the university-based spreadsheet called WUFFDA that is available for free and can be easily used to formulate feed. Commercial databases and computer formulation packages are also available that make changing the ingredient database, using nutrient ratios and formulating with limited amounts of ingredients easy and effective. Some of these are available to try before you buy. To become a successful formulator requires practice and time.