Charles Stark Kansas State University

Publish Date: April 17, 2012

Should I Purchase or Make My Own Feed?

Publish Date: March 25, 2010

Preparing high quality swine diets is a complex process that involves several important components. Those components include ingredient procurement, diet formulation, feed manufacturing and delivery of the final diet. Careful attention must be given to the quality of the ingredients used to manufacture swine diets. The quality of the final diet also needs to be checked to ensure it is consistent with that of the original formula specifications or product description. Otherwise, optimal pig performance and economic outcomes may not be achieved. To ensure this consistency, a quality assurance program that involves product specification sheets, proper feed and ingredient sampling, analytical procedures and interpretation of laboratory results should be implemented.

Publish Date: March 25, 2010

All cereal grains fed to swine need to be processed to reduce the particle size by cracking, grinding, rolling, extruding, expanding, or other method before being mixed with other ingredients and fed as a complete diet. Processing improves the utilization of grain nutrients primarily through improved digestibility. Cereal grains with hard seed coats (grain sorghum, barley, and triticale) have the greatest improvements in digestibility due to processing, but even processing corn has economic benefits and is routinely done for swine [1,2]. Pelleting is a cost-effective technology that can improve feed efficiency, decrease diet segregation, increase bulk density, reduce dustiness, improve feed handling characteristics and reduce issues with feed bridging. However, other feed processing technologies may have limited value in swine diets. Proper feed mixing and diet sequencing is also important to maintain pig performance and minimize concerns about potential antibiotic residues.