Making home made concentrates It’s now a common fact that you should know if you are interested in dairy farming. Any cow fed on grasses alone will never achieve its full milk yield potential.
You must therefore supplement the forage with concentrates.Currently there is a great variety of concentrates in the market.
All may be good but there is one disadvantage of using them. They are expensive. With a 70 kg sack going for more than Ksh 2800, the most profitable thing you would be resorting to cheaper alternatives to minimize your costs.
Commercial dairy meal is produced by mixing different feeds so that the final feed is relatively high in protein (about 16%) and has a good (but not overly high) amount of energy. Dairy meal is often expensive, and may not be cost-effective, especially if the quality is sub-standard and the farmer has to pay transport costs.
It is possible to make a better quality and more cost-effective mixture mainly using ingredients grown on the farm.Contrary to what feed suppliers will tell you there is no magic behind making concentrates. The trick is in using the right ingredients and mixing them in the right proportions.
Different ingredients contain different levels of major nutrients such as protein, energy and minerals. A mixture must be formulated to balance the nutrients to form part of the animal’s total diet and tailored to suit its particular requirement relative to the kinds of forage that are available.
The information here is intended to be used as a guide. If you are in any doubt about what is best for your circumstances, please contact me for more advise.
Examples of high energy feeds available in Kenya.
Maize germ
Wheat pollard
Molasses
Maize bran
Wheat bran
High Protein Feeds available in the country
Lucerne hay
Cotton seed cake
Soya bean meal
Sunflower seed cake
Sesbania leaves
Calliandra leaves
Fish meal.
Common Sources of Minerals in Kenya.
Dicalcium Phosphate
Limestone
Rock phosphate
Mineral Premix.
If your can properly mix ingredients from the three groups above, in right quantity, then you have your concentrate at lower cost and in some cases better quality than what you get from the market.Making home-made concentrates
How to Mix the Dairy Supplements
1: Ordinary supplement
To make 100 kg of the supplement use:
75 kg energy feeds
23 kg protein feed
2 kg minerals.
For example:
57 kg Maize germ
18 kg Wheat pollard
17kg Lucerne hay
6 kg Soya meal
2 kg Dicalcium phosphate.
2: High yielder dairy supplement
To make 100 kg of the supplement use:
68 kg energy feeds
30 kg protein feed
2 kg minerals.
For example:
50 kg maize germ
16 kg wheat pollard
2 kg molasses
14 kg cotton seed cake
12 kg lucern
4 kg fish meal
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