The alternative raw materials of Côte d'Ivoire: distillers' grains, local cakes, cassava, brewery residues
Maize and soybean meal make up 85 to 90 kilos of every bag of Ivorian feed, and their price makes up 75% of the cost. Every time one of the two rises, the farmer turns to what the country produces: brewers' grains from the breweries of Abidjan and Bouaké, cottonseed and groundnut cakes from the north, palm kernel and copra from the south, cassava everywhere. These raw materials can bring the cost of a feed down; they can also make it toxic, rancid or impossible to eat if you ignore their limits. This lesson gives their average values, their anti-nutritional factors, their inclusion limits, and two examples solved in the spreadsheet that show when an alternative is worth it and when it is not.
15 min read · 5-question quiz at the end
By Abdul Hussein ChoumanFounder of NEXTEKCI · Agnibilékrou hatchery since 2006This lesson is part of Making feed on the farm, expert level specialisation. It opens to every registered student, from free registration. Levels 1 to 5 and the tracks remain readable by everyone.
Maize and soybean meal make up 85 to 90 kilos of every bag of Ivorian feed, and their price makes up 75% of the cost. Every time one of the two rises, the farmer turns to what the country produces: brewers' grains from the breweries of Abidjan and Bouaké, cottonseed and groundnut cakes from the north, palm kernel and copra from the south, cassava everywhere. These raw materials can bring the cost of a feed down; they can also make it toxic, rancid or impossible to eat if you ignore their limits. This lesson gives their average values, their anti-nutritional factors, their inclusion limits, and two examples solved in the spreadsheet that show when an alternative is worth it and when it is not.
- ✓Know the average nutritional value and the inclusion limit of the main alternative raw materials available in Côte d'Ivoire
- ✓Recognise the anti-nutritional factor of each one (gossypol, hydrocyanic acid, anti-trypsin factors, aflatoxins, fibre, rancidity) and the action that controls it
- ✓Introduce an alternative into a spreadsheet formula, checking which nutrient becomes limiting and correcting it
- ✓Decide, figures in hand, whether an alternative lowers the cost of the complete formula, and from what price
- Why alternatives, and where they are found
- The table of alternatives: average values and limits
- The four questions before including an alternative
- Worked example 1: cottonseed cake in the grower feed, and lysine becoming limiting
- Worked example 2: cassava and brewers' grains in the layer feed, and the question of the maize price
- The expert's rule: one alternative at a time, measured
- Going further
- •Ivorian alternatives: dried brewers' grains (2,200 kcal, 25% protein, 5 to 8% broilers, 10% layers), cotton (2,100, 40%, 5% broilers, never in lay, gossypol), groundnut (2,600, 45%, 5 to 8%, aflatoxins), palm kernel and copra (1,500 to 2,000, 15 to 22%, 5 to 10%, fibre and rancidity), artisanal soya (cooking verified by urease), cassava (3,150, 2.5%, 10 to 20%, hydrocyanic acid, dust, + methionine).
- •Four questions: real value of the lot, anti-nutritional factor and action, keeping, regularity; and one alternative at a time, at half limit, against a control house.
- •Example 1: 5 kg of cotton in C2 drop lysine to 1.07%; 50 g of L-lysine bring it back to 1.105%; cost 181.20 u, that is − 1.8%: profitable if you thought about lysine.
- •Example 2: 10 kg of cassava + 5 kg of brewers' grains in lay cost + 0.65 u at normal prices (useless) and − 2.33 u when maize rises 20% (profitable in the lean season): rerun the solver every month.
- •Wet brewers' grains: 100 kg at 78% water = 22 kg of dry matter = 24 kg of dried grains; dry in a 3 cm layer within 2 days, never into the mixer as such.