Pellet Feeding for Poultry Flocks

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 87, Issue 3, 15 September 1953, Page 237

Pellet Feeding for Poultry Flocks

THE natural diet of the wild fowl consists of vegetable matter such as herbage, seeds, etc., and of insects and other small animal life. Under wild conditions this suffices for one or two clutches of eggs a year, but domestication has much increased the productivity of poultry. To maintain this without breakdown in health of poultry, food given them must be correspondingly more efficient. In certain systems of management where poultry have little or no access to natural conditions and where'egg production, hatching, rearing, and so forth take place at unnatural times of the year nutrition becomes even more important and only by careful feeding based on experience can success bl achieved ' ' , . ■ • . . . The number of eggs a fowl is capable of producing depends on charactenstics inherited from its parents, but the quantity it actually produces depends on the management . it receives, and one of the mam points of , good management is correct nutrition. Up to the present the diet of New Zealand poultry flocks has been wheat supplemented by other grains and mash, wet and dry. Controversy has raged over the wet and dry mash systems, but now that pellets have been introduced both methods are seriously challenged. . In England during and after the .war poultry farmers with no area from

which to supplement their food supply were forced to use wet mash to be able to eke out their rations with potatoes, processed waste, etc., but when food was more plentiful and wherever the ration would allow it they were much more inclined to use a simpler method of feeding. Dry mash feeding is satisfactory up to a point, but is rather wasteful, and in many ways the introduction of pellets provided a dry feed which did not have the disadvantages of dry mash. Even so when pellets were first brought on to the market about 20 years ago poultry farmers were inclined to be sceptical, and it was some time before they became accepted and used widely. A a •nn fi+ u A rm in Hull first began the manufacture of pellets, and to those who made use of them they quickly proved their value. Pellets have been produced O n a limited scale in New Zealand for some time, but it is only withn recent months that considerable prominence has been given to use of them and . great interest is now being shown in this method of feeding. Method of Manufacture 1 ,v,eTnoa OT Laying pellets consist of layers’ mash which is heated and sometimes mixed with a binding agent (molasses) and then forced through dies of Sin diameter from whic th em B erge in approximately Jin. lengths suitable for feeding to birds. They should be free

from loose mash, though some of English manufacture were far from this. However, this was the exception rather than the rule. , Small pellets suitable for feeding to chicks from day old onward are also being produced. The milling firms found, however, that the high cost of the machinery necessary to produce chick pellets and comparatively small output per hour made production uneconomic. Some firms

layers’ size P breaking these pellets down in a erushinp maphinp and nm ducing what are known a<? crumbs nr crumbles Results from this type of feeding ' aooear to h? nerfeetlv satisfactory P ? + - ~ n f senses from those nn + r 2?Ji Q +2+,22 ClC Q n ® what is °F what is n++i +iU; i/F’FP 1 an taste mae *9 „F„°u+; , a PP earan 9 e an .d 7 C mpo+? n nil lo 2++^ eil +®^ m u I P a P9 b ’+> ai l°+2 aC *' ° y , shining, „ ; „£ a °,T 330 not a PP re nnrnri +22+ ,•+ r „ ? +i? ch JI st u *0 their , I7 4+h „,?+ greatly when mixed P u lle Kj Sf masl i should have all its good qualities made more attractive by the method of presentation. British Tri I „ ,Sn ,rial Up to the present no investigational work has been done on pellet feeding in New Zealand and it is,, doubtful if such work need be done, because of P l 6 full trial of this system of feeding in the United Kingdom. The British Uil and Cake Mills (8.0.C.M.) have completed a trial, using laying battery cages, to compare egg production from pellets and mash. , Pullets hatched in late spring were housed at random in battery cages and kept for 48 weeks from the start of aTneSb? possible 1 men"“except for- the alterations ffi

their diet. Two groups were fed dry mash and pellets respectively ad lib. and another two groups dry mash and pellets respectively restricted to 4|oz. per day. The factors taken into consideration in assessing results were total egg production, income from eggs less food costs, gross profits, body weights, moulting, and broodiness. In the first two ad lib. groups there was no significant difference in egg production. It was mainly in carcass values that they differed at the end of the period, the birds fed on pellets showing a gain of approximately lib. per bird over the group fed dry mash ad lib. In the second two groups, however, there was a great difference in the cash returns,’ the group receiving 4-|oz. of pellets being far superior to that receiving a similar -quantity of dry mash. The gross profit was more than double. To verify the results the experiment was repeated for a second year and the same difference was apparent. Some of the mash was bound to be wasted in the water and it seemed probable that birds fed 4|oz. per day actually would receive only about 40z., which would be barely sufficient for maintenance. No pellets were wasted and pellets were eaten in an hour after the daily feed. This experiment was carried out when egg prices in Britain were uniform over the year, but Dr. Blount, the instigator, pointed out that with seasonal variations in egg prices there would be a difference in profit shown between the first two ad lib. groups which was not apparent when the experiment was conducted. The pellets appeared to. favour the production of early eggs, which from late-spring-hatched birds meant eggs laid in winter, when egg prices would be highest. In the pellets ad lib. group, in which the stimulus to egg production was .greatest, more eggs over 2|oz. were produced; in fact the percentage was three times that of the lowest restricted mash group. The percentage of cracked and shell-less eggs was also greater in the pellet ad lib. group, and under other ■ conditions than battery laying ’ cages the tendency to ■egg eating would be increased. Less Conclusive Results Experiments carried out at the National Institute of Poultry Husbandry during a similar period (1947, 1948), also in battery cages, produced less conclusive results. The birds used were 232 six months’ old Rhode Island Red x Light Sussex pullets and were divided into 6 groups: Dry mash ad lib., wet mash ad lib., pellets ad lib., ■dry mash restricted to 4|oz. per day, wet mash restricted to 4|oz. per day, and pellets restricted to 4|oz. per day. Dr. H. Temperton the investigator commented in his report: “Of the birds allowed unrestricted access to the diet those receiving dry mash had the lowest total cost of production per bird, followed by pellets and wet mash. The pellet fed birds produced more eggs than those fed dry mash, but the difference in returns was not sufficient to offset the higher cost of production, the difference in net profit in favour of the dry mash group being 3.2 d. per cage. In contrast the wet mash group had the highest production cost and the lowest return, the difference in net profit per

cage compared with pellets and dry mash being Bs. 2d. and Bs. 6d. respectively. “In this experiment the consumption of pellets in the ad lib. group exceeded the dry mash group by about 12 per cent., whereas in the 8.0.C.M. experiment the difference, though negligible, was in the other direction. “When the amount of food . was restricted a reduction in profits resulted in each case, but in the case of pellets the reduction was only half that for dry mash and a quarter of that for wet mash. “From this experiment it appears that there is little difference in the effects of feeding dry mash or pellets ad lib., but in this instance both were markedly superior to wet mash.” Factors to be Considered The use of , pellets prevents poultry farmers from compounding their own rations and they are unable to vary the diet except by providing meat meal or whatever may be required in a separate trough or hopper. Although manufacturing firms may claim that use of pellets prevents birds from unbalancing their diet by picking out individual ingredients from the mash, it is rarely that such unbalancing occurs or has any serious effect in practice. Poultry certainly appreciate the palatability of food in pellet form, and during the pullet year, when the birds should be producing heavily, there is little danger of their consuming too great a quantity. However, if the flock includes second- or third-year birds some restriction would be necessary to prevent their becoming overweight. During the shorter, winter days, when egg prices are highest and the birds require to take in extra food to maintain body temperatures, it would seem that pellets demonstrate their greatest advantage, as the birds are able to take in all their. requirements in the shortest possible time. Pellets may be fed as a morning or evening feed alternating with grain, in

which case meat meal would have to be provided in a separate hopper. They also may be used in place of dry mash fed ad lib. Where artificial lighting is used during winter, pellets may be provided as the extra feed, and the hoppers opened in the evening may be closed by the attendant on his first trip round in the morning. Fish oil may be supplied by mixing it into a small percentage of wheat or other grain, which in turn is mixed with the pellets for trough feeding. Where the system of management is to feed pellets ad lib. the most practical method of supplying fish oil is in grain, which must be trough fed or mixed with greenfeed. Alternatively pellets containing full vitamin requirements for laying stock may be bought. A disadvantage of pellet feeding may be that birds can fill their crops in a very short period and have time to get into mischief, such as turning their attention to cannibalism or egg eating. Where the diet is somewhat restricted birds become more occupied in scratching about in the litter. A definite point in favour of feeding pellets is the ease and pleasantness of distributing the feed. Pellets are labour saving and clean and there is very little contamination of litter or water troughs. They are easy to handle during windy ■ weather. Chick pellets or crumbs are perfectly satisfactory for feeding to chickens in place of their mash ration, and growing pullets may be fed on growers’ pellets where these are available/ The change to growers’ pellets should be made gradually from the time birds reach 6 to 8 weeks of age. In whatever form food is presented it must be palatable. It must provide no more fibre than is necessary to promote easy passage of food through the alimentary tracts and must furnish sufficient nutrients in correct balance, supplemented with minerals and vitamins, so • that not only is the bird maintained in good health, but it is able to produce from raw materials the maximum number of eggs of which it is capable.