QUALITY EVALUATION AND SAFETY OF ANIMAL FEEDS

Pashu Sandesh, 18th March 2019

Manoj Kumar Bunkar, Neha Thakur, Sarita Kumari, Ashish Saini, Manaswini Sharma

Introduction:-

Feed is considered as most expensive component of the total production cost in the animal industries. A quality feed would supply all nutrients in adequate quantity and high digestibility and ingestibility. For any type of evaluation appropriate sampling technique should be adopted for analysis of incoming ingredients and finished feeds.

Physical evaluation:

The physical evaluation of feed mostly provides preliminary information on the quality of the material.The physical evaluation includes examining the color, taste, smell,sound, and touch.

Physical Methods to Detect Adulteration or Contamination:

The Common contaminant or adulterant is husk or sand.Winnowing is the best method to detect husk in the feedstuff. Sieving can be done to differentiate contaminants based on particle size.

To detect for the presence of sand a weighed quantity of the grain is soaked in water then by sieving with hand the grains can be separated. The remaining water if decanted the settled sand can be weighed and the level of contamination can be assessed.

Chemical analysis:

An analytical laboratory for the precise estimation of nutrient contents and contaminants is of utmost importance. Chemical analysis could be done for proximate constituents, fiber fractions, non-starch polysaccharides, minerals, vitamins, and incriminating / toxic constituents etc.

Proximate analysis includes moisture, crude fat, crude fiber, crude protein, total ash and nitrogen free extract. This indicates possible constraints on usage due to the presence of excessive content of crude fiber, fat or total ash.

Additional tests should be carried out on materials with high ash content, to determined acid insoluble ash. The amount of acid insoluble ash is good guide to amount of sand or other dirt which may be present. It is also desirable to determine the free fatty acid content of oily material as this will affect the palatability due to rancidity.

Low Crude Protein and high Crude Fiberof oil seed mealis indicative of adulteration with fibrous material.

The high Crude Fiberalone is indicative of adulteration with urea and or some inferior quality oil seed meals likemahua, castor or karanja cake.

Near infrared reflectance spectroscopy technology (NIRS):

The near infrared reflectance spectroscopy has been used to determine the feed common ingredient, such as dry matter, crude protein, crude fiber, crude fat and so on, micro-components including amino acid, vitamin, and noxious components, and to determine the physical and chemical properties of animal products which including egg, mutton, beef and pork.

Microscopic analysis:

Feed microscopy is commonly used for confirming the adulteration and identifying the adulterants. Feed ingredients, adulterants and contaminants must be studied under low and high magnification for distinguishing features whether coarsely or finely ground.

Biological evaluation:

Biological evaluation of the feeds involve the use of animals, specializes persons to conduct the digestion and metabolism trials on the various species of livestock and poultry. These methods are time consuming.

Conclusion:

Feed evaluation is the testing of feed quality, providing information on the composition of feed or feed ingredients as well as their suitability for animal.One of the most important issues in the animal feed industry is production of safe and good quality feed, as it has a major impact on the product. The environment and human health are closely interrelated and animal product safety is an important requirement for well being of human society. Quality of animal feed affects the quality of animal product and ultimately human health. Feed ingredient quality is the foundation upon which an animal ration is built. Therefore, establishing an ingredient-quality evaluation program is an essential component of a successful feed processing operation. Specifications serve as the basis for purchase agreements, and for the formulation of rations.  In India there is wide variation in the processing techniques of raw materials ranging from very efficient to traditional methods, thus resulting in products of varied nutrient composition, color and texture.

Manoj Kumar Bunkar¹, Neha Thakur², Sarita Kumari¹, Ashish Saini¹, Manaswini Sharma¹

¹Department of Livestock Products Technology

Post Graduate Institute of Veterinary Education and Research, Jaipur- 302031

²Department of Livestock Products Technology, Apollo College Of Veterinary Medicine, Jaipur- 302031

Email: manoj.bunkar17@gmail.com