Manufacture of pelletised feeds, their storage and quality control

Presentation of feed in its most suitable physical form is key to the successful performance of the feed. The physical design of a feed should be in accordance with the feeding habits of the candidate animal and should not cause any impediment to its feeding activity. It is also important to consider that the design of the feed should have the practicability of inexpensive storage and easy way of dispensing. Involvement of sophisticated processing enhances the cost of production. Finfish generally graze the feed. The convenient way of presenting the feed to them is in the form of wet dough, certain fish can also freely feed upon floating pellets and flaked feeds

Determination of growth inhibitors and toxins

Certain feedstuffs contain natural toxins that; at high enough levels, are growth inhibitors and sometimes fatal to the animal consuming them. Principal among these are: (a) Urease-an enzyme found in raw soybean which produces toxicity through the hydrolysis of urea to ammonia; (b) gosaypol-an endogenous toxin present in the gland of cottonseed which persists during production of the meal unless removed by a special process, or, unless, the cotton seed is a glandless variety; (c) Isothiocyanatescyanogenic glycosides are found in linseed and cassava; (d) aflatoxin is a class of extremely potent toxins produced by the mould Aspergillus flavus. Aflatoxin may be present in any materials produced and stored under hot and humid conditions and is usually found in groundnut cake, palm cake, copra cake and maize

Impact of particle size of ingredients in compounded diets on pellet stability and performance in Penaeus indicus H. Milne Edwards

The impact of particle size of ingredients in a research diet and a practical feed in the water stability of pellets. Their digestibility, growth, and food conversion ratio in the prawn Penaeus ;ndicus were investigated. The research diet consisted of casein, code liver oil, sucrose, starch, cellulose and other additives while the practical feed was made up of prawn waste mantis shrimp (Squilla), fish meal, groundnut oil cake and tapioca. Casein in the research diet and prawn waste, mantis shrimp, and groundnut oil cake in the practical feed were prepared into panicles of 500, 420,300,250,2 10, 100, and 50 gm and dry pellets were prepared with ingredients in each size

Proximate composition analysis of feeds

The chemical composition of the feed gives its potential nutritive value and hence, in the assessment of quality of a feed the proximate principles are first determined. The Weende proximate analysis system for analyzing animal feed includes the determination of moisture (dry matter) ether extract (crude fat) crude protein, ash, crude fibre and nitrogen free extract (NFE)

Determination of minerals

Mineral elements have a great diversity of uses within the animal body. The prominence of each mineral element in body tissues is closely related to its functional role. Calcium and phosphorus are too major mineral elements that must be present in adequate amounts in the feeds supplied. The amount of sodium chloride and potassium in certain feeds should also be ascertained to screen out feeds for feeding fish and shellfish

Compounded feeds for post larval rearing of marine prawns

Availability of appropriate feed has been the main constraint for rearing the various stages of prawn larvae. This is largely overcome by the use of live feed cultures. But the maintenance of these live feed cultures require specialised technical inputs, labour and time

Preparation of artificial diets for nutritional studies

The H 440 standard reference diet of Halver (1969) has* proven satisfactory for use with a variety of species of fishes. If this exact formula does not prove satisfactory for growth and survival of the test fish, slight modifications of clearly explained ingredient changes still permit meaningful comparisons of the test fish results with other species

Determination of vitamins in feeds

The vitamins, though required in small amounts in the diet, play major roles in growth, physiology and metabolism of the animal. Their absence in the diet causes major deficiency syndromes. Also, the vitamins should be present in optimum levels in the diet; any excess in certain vitamins in the diet causes pathological symptoms and inhibit growth. Therefore, the determination of the amount of different vitamins present in the diet is very important