Making feed on the farm, expert level specialisation

Set up a workshop, formulate in a spreadsheet, control and trace a feed

Introduction

Making your own feed on the farm is what level 11 of the NEXTEKCI School taught: formulating with Pearson's square, buying maize and soya, grinding, weighing, mixing, checking. This specialisation is for those who want to go to the end of the trade, that is to run a feed workshop like a professional: designing it in forward flow, with its capacity in tonnes per day, its dust captured and its safety rules; formulating in a spreadsheet with all the constraints at once and the lowest cost, and knowing how to read what the solver says; bringing in the raw materials of Côte d'Ivoire (brewers' grains, cottonseed, groundnut and palm kernel cakes, cassava chips) without breaking lysine or poisoning the flock; having analyses done, reading a report and recalculating with the true value; preventing, detecting and managing mycotoxins with thresholds and an exposure calculation; reading a premix, recalculating a formula with an enzyme, judging an additive by a real trial, and never putting a medicine in the mixer without the veterinarian; deciding by calculation whether pelleting is worth it; keeping the quality and traceability required by the licence to sell feed in Côte d'Ivoire, the one NEXTEKCI holds in Agnibilékrou. Ten lessons written by a field trainer, each with its definitions, its worked examples with figures and its actions, then a complete exercise and an investigation case study. Open from free registration, after or alongside the 15 levels.

By the end of this specialisation, you will be able to

✓Design and run a feed workshop: capacity in tonnes per day, forward-flow plan, stocks, dust, safety and lock-out
✓Formulate in a spreadsheet at least cost with all the constraints, substitute Ivorian raw materials while checking every nutrient, and recalculate at every analysis report
✓Control the invisible risks: mycotoxins (prevention, detection, thresholds, doubtful lot), premixes, enzymes and additives, with the absolute rule of medicines only on the veterinarian's prescription
✓Decide on pelleting by calculation and keep a complete quality and traceability system: batch number, five registers, retained samples, label, recall drill, licence

10 lessons · a 5-question quiz after each lesson · an exam (20 questions, 80%) · verifiable specialisation certificate. Specialisation open to every registered student, in any order.

1
Setting up a feed workshop: premises, equipment, flows, dust, safety
Level 11 showed you the four machines of a farm workshop. This specialisation starts where it stopped: you are going to design the workshop itself, like an expert who has to run it every day without an accident, without mould and without a lost bag. How many tonnes per day? What floor area? In what order are the stations? How does dust move, and why can it burn? Who is allowed to open the grinder? Each question is answered with a worked example for a medium-sized Ivorian farm, then turned into a floor plan and rules posted on the wall. A well-designed workshop produces a consistent feed; an improvised workshop produces surprises.
What you will learn
✓Calculate the capacity of a workshop in tonnes per day from the farm's consumption and deduce the size of machines and stocks
✓Draw the plan of a workshop in forward flow, with its zones and its direction of movement
✓Control meal dust: where it is born, why it is dangerous, how it is captured
✓Write the safety rules of the workshop (machines, electricity, noise, lock-out) and post them
Lesson outline
Start from consumption: capacity in tonnes per day
Stocks: how much room for the bags
The floor plan: forward flow
Dust: where it is born, why it burns, how it is captured
Safety: machines, electricity, noise, lock-out
The typical day and the workshop sheet
Going further
Key points
•Capacity = farm consumption (kg per day) ÷ manufacturing days per week, plus 20 to 30% margin; example: 8,000 birds, 920 kg/d, 2 manufacturing days → 3.2 t/d, 7 batches of 500 kg, grinder 4 h (bottleneck).
•Stocks: 3 weeks of raw materials, 2 to 3 weeks of finished feed, on pallets, 30 cm from the walls, first in first out; they take as much room as the workshop (85 to 90 m² in the example).
•Forward flow: receiving outside → store → grinding against an outside wall → clean weighing in the centre → mixing → bagging → finished feed store with opposite exit; no going back.
•Dust: captured at source (hood, cyclone or filter bag outside, closed bin), mask and earplugs, motors dedusted every week; it damages lungs, loses nutrients, goes mouldy and can burn.
•Safety: screwed guards, stick not the hand, emergency stop tested, lock-out with padlock, electrics to standard with residual current breaker and earth, combustion engine outside, extinguishers, bags carried by two.
14 min read · 5-question quiz
2
Formulating with a spreadsheet: constraints, least cost, substitution of raw materials
Pearson's square from level 11 balances protein between two ingredients; it knows nothing about price, lysine or the inclusion limit of cottonseed cake. As soon as a workshop has eight or ten raw materials whose prices change every month, you need a tool that holds all the constraints at once and finds the cheapest formula that respects them all. That tool is an ordinary spreadsheet, with its sum-of-products function and its solver. This lesson builds the sheet line by line, solves a complete example in "units" (you will put in your own prices), and shows what the solver sees that the eye does not: the true saving of a substitution, and its break-even point.
What you will learn
✓Build a formulation sheet: ingredients in rows, nutrients in columns, totals by sum of products, minimum and maximum targets
✓Write the constraints of a formula (total, nutrients, inclusion limits) and run the solver for least cost
✓Calculate by hand the effect of a substitution (cassava for maize) on nutrients and on cost, and find its break-even price
✓Read a solver result: binding constraints, marginal cost of a nutrient, infeasible solution, rounding
Lesson outline
Why the spreadsheet, and what exactly it does
Building the sheet, line by line
Running the solver: variables, objective, constraints
Substitution by hand: understanding what the solver does
Reading the solver's answer like an expert
The constraint sheet: a model to copy
Going further
Key points
•Least-cost formulation looks for the cheapest formula that respects all the constraints at once; the spreadsheet calculates it with SUMPRODUCT and its solver (linear method).
•Sheet: one row per ingredient (kg, as-fed price delivered to the workshop, min, max, contents), one column per nutrient, Total row, Target min and max rows, Cost cell; example C2 = 184.46 u per 100 kg, 0.60 u per 1,000 kcal, 9.22 u per kg of protein.
•Substitution by hand: gross effect, protein correction (soya), energy correction (oil), compared cost; 10 kg of cassava at 0.70 u cost + 1.10 u once the formula is corrected; break-even price 0.59 u, about 60% of the price of maize.
•Reading the solver: binding constraints (energy, protein, methionine), marginal cost (0.25 u per 100 kg per hundredth of a point of methionine), infeasible solution = contradictory targets to relax, rounding closed back to 100 kg, inclusion limits never negotiated.
•Routine: monthly recalculation with prices and analyses up to date; change in the workshop only if the saving exceeds 1 to 2%; each formula has a dated version.
15 min read · 5-question quiz
3
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.
What you will learn
✓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
Lesson outline
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
Key points
•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.
15 min read · 5-question quiz
4
Analyses: what to have analysed, how to read a report, what to do with an out-of-range result
All formulation rests on figures: 46% protein in soya, 14% moisture in maize, 38% calcium in shells. As long as these figures come from a table, the formula is a hypothesis. The day they come from an analysis report of your own lot, it becomes a certainty, and that is the day the workshop becomes expert. This lesson says what to have analysed and how often, how to take a sample that truly represents 20 tonnes, how to read a report line by line (dry matter, as fed, tolerances), and which decision to take, in order, when a figure falls outside the range. With two real reports solved: a soybean meal and a layer feed.
What you will learn
✓Draw up the workshop's analysis plan: which analysis for which raw material and which feed, how often
✓Take a representative sample of a lot (probe, sampling points, quartering, label, twin retained sample)
✓Read an analysis report: convert dry matter and as fed, compare with tables and tolerances, interpret urease and soya solubility
✓Apply the decision tree to an out-of-range result and recalculate the formula with the true value
Lesson outline
Why analyse, and what each analysis measures
Taking a sample that represents the lot
Reading a report: worked example, a soybean meal
Tolerances: from when a result is "out of range"
The decision tree for an out-of-range result
The workshop's analysis plan over a year
Going further
Key points
•You analyse to formulate right, buy right and defend yourself: moisture, protein, fat, fibre, ash, calcium, phosphorus, sodium, aflatoxins, urease and KOH of soya; energy is calculated, amino acids are deduced.
•Sample: probe, 10 to 20 spread bags, quartering down to 1 kg, 500 g to the laboratory and 500 g twin, complete label; 10 kg for mycotoxins; 80% of errors come from sampling.
•Conversion: as fed = dry matter × (100 − moisture) ÷ 100; soya at 47.8% on dry matter and 11.5% moisture = 42.3% as fed; urease 0.05 to 0.30 (above: undercooked, refused); KOH 73 to 85 (below 70: overcooked).
•Finished feed tolerances: protein ± 1 point, calcium ± 0.3 (± 0.4 lay), sodium ± 0.05, moisture + 1 at most; contaminants: threshold without tolerance.
•Decision tree: label → tolerance → twin → true value in the sheet and recalculation (soya 42.3%: + 2.9 kg of soya, + 0.6 kg of oil) → lot isolated and labelled → register and supplier; finished feed: trace back the chain.
14 min read · 5-question quiz
5
Mycotoxins: prevent, detect, manage a doubtful batch
Level 11 presented mycotoxins in one section: invisible poisons of moulds, maize at 14%, grain sorting. The expert must go further, because in a hot and humid climate it is the number one risk of a feed workshop, and because it is managed with figures: which toxins, produced by which moulds, under which conditions, at which thresholds, detected how, and above all what to do with a 20-tonne lorry-load you have doubts about. This lesson gives the complete map of the mycotoxins that matter in Côte d'Ivoire, the prevention chain from field to mixer, the detection methods from the simplest to the surest, the international indicative thresholds, a worked exposure calculation, and the written procedure for a doubtful lot.
What you will learn
✓Distinguish the main mycotoxins (aflatoxins, fumonisins, trichothecenes, ochratoxin, zearalenone), their moulds, their raw materials and the conditions in which they appear
✓Apply the prevention chain from field to mixer and understand why mycotoxin sampling requires 10 kg
✓Choose the suitable detection method (eye, UV lamp, rapid kit, laboratory) and read a result in micrograms per kilo against indicative thresholds
✓Calculate the exposure of a finished feed from its raw materials and apply the doubtful-lot procedure
Lesson outline
The map of the mycotoxins that matter in Côte d'Ivoire
The prevention chain, from field to mixer
Detecting: from the eye to the laboratory, and the sample problem
Indicative thresholds and the exposure calculation
The doubtful-lot procedure
On the birds: what is observed, and what is done
Going further
Key points
•Families: aflatoxins (Aspergillus, hot damp storage, maize-groundnut-cotton, liver and defences), fumonisins and trichothecenes (Fusarium, in the field, maize), ochratoxin A (storage, kidneys), zearalenone (little effect in poultry); often several together, effects add up.
•Prevention: water and time (14% at bagging in less than 72 h, stock ≤ 6 to 8 weeks, pallets, air, stack ≤ ambient + 5 °C), insects (cleanliness, rotation, authorised protection only), receiving (mouldy ≤ 2%, pierced ≤ 5%), workshop dry-brushed, finished feed used within 2 to 3 weeks.
•Detection: eye-nose-hand, UV lamp 365 nm (indicator, 4 to 5 fluorescent grains = suspect), rapid kit (10 to 15 min, decision at unloading), laboratory (ELISA, HPLC, reference); 10 kg sample in 100 increments, all ground, 1 kg + 1 kg twin.
•Indicative benchmarks (poultry feed): aflatoxin B1 20 µg/kg (10 young), ochratoxin A 100, DON 5,000, fumonisins 20,000, T-2 250; prudent internal thresholds: aflatoxin 10, starter 5; national texts and laboratory are the authority.
•Exposure = sum of kg × µg/kg ÷ 100; maize 63.3 kg at 25 + groundnut 8 kg at 60 = 20.6 µg/kg: above the benchmark; doubtful lot: isolate, 10 kg, kit, laboratory, decide by the table, never dilute, clean, note, veterinarian for the birds.
15 min read · 5-question quiz
6
Premixes, enzymes, additives: what they are, what they bring, what is never done without the veterinarian
In 100 kg of feed, there are 99 kg of maize, soya, fish meal, oil and minerals, and 1 kg of "small bags": premix, amino acids, enzymes, additives. That kilo costs as much as 10 kg of maize, decides the health of the bones, the quality of the shell, the colour of the yolk and the digestion of bran, and it is through it that all the temptations come: the powder that makes birds grow, the "boosted" concentrate, the neighbour's remedy. Level 11 set the rule; this lesson makes it expert: read a premix label and convert it into contents in the feed, recalculate a formula when you add a phytase, choose and measure an additive, and hold the red line that never moves: no medicine in the feed without the veterinarian.
What you will learn
✓Read the label of a premix and convert its contents into contents in the finished feed according to the inclusion rate
✓Understand what an enzyme does (phytase, fibre enzymes) and recalculate the formula with its matrix value
✓Classify additives by family, ask the three questions before adding one and run a measured trial against a control house
✓Apply without exception the medicine rule: veterinarian's prescription, authorised manufacturer, withdrawal period, register
Lesson outline
The premix from the inside: reading the label
Enzymes: what they do and how you recalculate the formula
Additives: the families, and what you measure
The trial protocol: a control house, two flocks, figures
The red line: never a medicine without the veterinarian
The workshop's premix, enzyme and additive sheet
Going further
Key points
•Premix: vitamins + trace elements + antioxidant in a carrier, at 0.5%, 1% or 2.5% (concentrate with Ca, P, salt, amino acids to be deducted from the formula); label converted per kg of feed = content × rate ÷ 100 (2,400,000 IU/kg at 0.5% = 12,000 IU/kg); species and phase, date, manufacturer, lot, no veterinary substance.
•Enzymes: phytase (phytate phosphorus released, phosphate reduced by 0.57 kg per 100 kg with a 0.10 point matrix, that is 2.0 u to compare with the enzyme cost), fibre enzymes (bran, brewers' grains, palm kernel), proteases; weighed to the gram, pre-dilution, heat < 80 °C, formula recalculated or money lost.
•Additives by family (antioxidants, binders, acidifiers, probiotics, extracts, pigments, emulsifiers, anti-caking agents, mould inhibitors): sheet, authorisation, measurement; nutrient, additive or medicine?
•Trial: two twin houses, same batch, same formula ± additive, 50 weighings per week, FCR; effect demonstrated only beyond the noise (0.05 of FCR, 3% of weight) and repeated on two swapped flocks; adopted only if the saving exceeds the cost.
•Red line: antibiotics, anticoccidials, antiparasitics, unknown concentrates = written prescription from the veterinarian of the area, authorised manufacturer, quantity and duration set by him, withdrawal period, separate batch, cleaning, label, register, sample; antibiotic growth promoters and hormones: never.
14 min read · 5-question quiz
7
Pellets: advantages, equipment, temperature, and when it is not worth it
All commercial broiler feeds come as crumbs or pellets, and many farmers who make their own mash wonder whether they are losing something. The honest answer is: yes, a little, and it can be put in figures; but pelleting also costs, in machines, energy, steam, time, and it can damage what is most fragile in the formula. This lesson explains what a pellet is, how it is made (conditioner, press, cooler, crumbler), why temperature is the setting that decides everything, how a pellet is checked on the farm, and above all how you calculate, with your own figures, whether the workshop should equip itself or stay with well-made mash.
What you will learn
✓Explain the three presentations of a feed (mash, crumbs, pellets) and what pelleting really brings to the broiler, in figures
✓Describe the pelleting chain (conditioner, press, cooler, crumbler, sieve) and the temperature and moisture settings that govern it
✓Check a pellet on the farm: durability, hardness, moisture, temperature, diameter
✓Decide, through a complete calculation, whether pelleting is worth it for a given workshop, and recognise the cases where it is not
Lesson outline
Mash, crumbs, pellets: what the chicken gains
The pelleting chain: from conditioner to sieve
Temperature: the setting that decides everything
Checking a pellet on the farm
The calculation: what pelleting brings, what it costs
The traps of pelleting
Going further
Key points
•Mash, crumbs (1.5 to 2.5 mm, starter), pellets (3 mm grower, 3.5 to 4 mm finisher); pelleting brings the broiler less sorting, 3 to 5% less waste, 2 to 5 points of FCR, better hygiene, less dust, more density; little interest in the layer (mash).
•Chain: conditioner (steam, 70 to 85 °C, 15.5 to 17% moisture), press (die, 80 to 90 °C), cooler (ambient + 5 °C, ≤ 12.5%), crumbler, sieve; small flat-die presses without steam: less durable pellet, for finisher on 1 to 2 t/d.
•Temperature: < 65 °C crumbly pellet and no hygiene; 70 to 85 °C the good pellet; > 90 °C vitamins, enzymes and lysine damaged → premix for pellets, heat-stable enzymes or after cooling.
•Checks: durability (500 g, 10 min, 2 mm sieve, ≥ 90%; 462 g = 92.4%), hardness (snaps cleanly), moisture and temperature at the cooler, fines in the bag (≤ 5 to 8%, crumbs ≤ 10%); the mash keeps its level 11 checks before the press.
•Decision by calculation: gain ≈ 527 kg of feed per flock of 2,000 (288 of waste + 239 of FCR) against energy (20 to 30 kWh/t), steam, hours, wear, premix, depreciation, rejects; in general yes above 2 to 3 t/d or for sales, no below 1 t/d, for layers, without stable electricity or with a mash still badly made.
14 min read · 5-question quiz
8
Quality and traceability of a home-made feed: retained samples, manufacturing register, licence
A farmer calls: "your bags from last month made my chickens ill". An inspector turns up: "show me what batch 17 contained and who you sold it to". Your own flock in house 2 drops off: "what did it eat last week, exactly?". In all three cases, an expert workshop answers in under two hours, documents and sachets in hand; an ordinary workshop answers "I think that...". The difference is called traceability, and it rests on few things: a batch number, five registers, retained samples properly stored, a complete label, and a recall exercise done regularly. This lesson puts them in place one by one, for own use as for sale, and says what the Ivorian licence expects to see.
What you will learn
✓Give a batch number to every manufacture and keep the five registers that link raw materials, manufacturing, checks, dispatches and incidents
✓Organise the retained samples of raw materials and finished feeds: sampling, labelling, duration, storage
✓Write the complete label of a bag of feed for sale and know what a bag for own use must carry
✓Run a two-hour recall exercise (upstream and downstream) and prepare the workshop for the licence and the internal audit
Lesson outline
Quality, traceability: two words, a single requirement
The batch number and the five registers
Retained samples: take, label, keep
The bag label: own use and sale
The recall exercise: two hours, upstream and downstream
Critical points, internal audit and the licence
Going further
Key points
•Quality = proven consistency; traceability = finding for any bag where it came from and where it went, in under two hours; the link is the batch number (YYMMDD-formula-no., e.g. 261105-G2-03), which changes as soon as a raw material lot changes.
•Five registers: receipt (workshop lot assigned), manufacturing (kilos weighed + lot of each ingredient + dated formula version + mixing + operator + balance), checks, dispatches (house or customer with contact), non-conformities (finding, cause, action, verification, closure).
•Retained samples: 500 g from three bags; raw materials until end of use + 1 month; farm feed 2 months; feed sold until the use-by date + 1 month; medicated 6 months; numbered boxes, list on the wall, expired ones out every month (170 sachets for the medium workshop).
•Sales label: name and type, species and stage, decreasing composition, analytical constituents, additives, directions, manufacturing and use-by dates (2 months), batch, manufacturer with licence, net weight; own use: feed, batch, date on every bag.
•Quarterly recall drill (upstream: formula, raw materials, receipt, retained samples; downstream: dispatches and sister batches; action; closure in register 5: 100 minutes in the example); critical points with limits; monthly internal audit; the Ivorian licence looks at this system, which NEXTEKCI runs in Agnibilékrou.
14 min read · 5-question quiz
9
Field exercise: formulate three feeds (starter, grower, layer) with your raw materials and compare them
Until now, the formulas came from the lesson. This time, they come from you: your raw materials, your prices of the month, your analysis reports, your spreadsheet. The exercise has you build three complete feeds, broiler starter, broiler grower and layer, check every nutrient, then put them side by side in a comparison table with four indicators every expert calculates: cost per 100 kg, cost per 1,000 kcal, cost per kilo of protein, and cost per bird or per month. The example is solved from start to finish in units so that you can check your method; your figures will give your results. By the end, you will have three formulas ready for the workshop, dated, and the sheet that will serve you every month.
What you will learn
✓Gather the exercise data: targets of the three phases, list of available raw materials with their contents (analyses or table) and their prices delivered to the workshop in units
✓Formulate in the spreadsheet a starter feed, a grower feed and a layer feed, and check every nutrient within target
✓Calculate and interpret the four comparison indicators (cost per 100 kg, per 1,000 kcal, per kilo of protein, per bird or per month)
✓Fill in the exercise sheet, test the sensitivity of the three formulas to a rise in maize, and conclude for the workshop
Lesson outline
The equipment and the rules of the game
Step 1: the three targets, side by side
Step 2: the starter formula S1, solved
Step 3: the three formulas in a row, and the four indicators
Step 4: the exercise sheet to fill in
Step 5: sensitivity to the maize price, and the variant
Going further
Key points
•Three targets side by side: starter 2,950 to 3,050 kcal, 22%, lysine ≥ 1.25, methionine ≥ 0.50, Ca 0.9 to 1.0, avail. P 0.45 to 0.50; grower 3,050 to 3,150, 20%, 1.10, 0.45, 0.85 to 0.95, 0.40 to 0.45; layer 2,750 to 2,850, 17%, 0.75 to 0.90, 0.40, Ca 3.5 to 4.2, avail. P 0.38 to 0.42; no cotton in starter or layer.
•S1 starter (100 kg): maize 59.05; soya 30.3; fish meal 5; oil 2.5; limestone 0.9; phosphate 1.3; salt 0.25; premix 0.5; DL-methionine 0.2 → 2,983 kcal, 22.0%, lysine 1.25, methionine 0.58, Ca 0.99, avail. P 0.48, Na 0.15; 196.12 u.
•Four indicators: cost per 100 kg (S1 196.12; G2 184.46; L1 159.57 u), per 1,000 kcal (0.66; 0.60; 0.58), per kg of protein (8.91; 9.22; 9.39), per bird or per month (1.08 per chick; 2.85 per chicken; 5.28 per hen per month); read together.
•Sensitivity to maize + 20%: S1 + 6.0%, G2 + 6.9%, L1 + 7.5%: the layer is the first to open up to alternatives in the lean season; variant: one alternative at half limit, all columns rechecked, saving > 1 to 2% = candidate for a trial.
•Sheet dated and filed with the formula version; a "no" box = draft; end point: one batch of each made, checked, grower retained sample analysed within tolerance.
15 min read · 5-question quiz
10
Case study: a home-made feed whose quality changes from one batch to the next, find the cause
An entrepreneur from the Agnibilékrou region has been making his own feed for a year, three houses of 2,000 broilers staggered, a one-tonne-a-day workshop, two workers. He calls in November: "One flock in two is good. The other, the droppings are soft, the weight drags, the feed conversion climbs. Same formula, same maize, same everything. I don't understand." He is lucky to have followed lesson 8: his five registers exist and his retained samples are in their boxes. This lesson goes through the investigation from start to finish: the flock figures, the clues in the registers, the analyses of the retained samples, the reasoning that puts the causes in order, the decision, the correction plan, and what should have been done before. It is the typical exercise of the specialisation exam.
What you will learn
✓Read the figures of four flocks and recognise that an alternating problem points to the feed before any other cause
✓Cross the manufacturing and dispatch registers with the analyses of the retained samples to isolate the defective batches and what sets them apart
✓Rank the causes by their mechanism and their weight, and rule out those that explain nothing
✓Write a correction plan with figures that can be verified, and name what a quality system would have caught earlier
Lesson outline
The situation: four flocks, one workshop, a problem that alternates
The clues: what the registers say
The reasoning: from clues to causes, by their mechanism
The decision and the correction plan
What should have been done before
Going further: the exam and the specialisation certificate
Key points
•Flocks 1 and 3 good (FCR 1.78 and 1.81), flocks 2 and 4 failed (FCR 1.92 and 1.96, weight − 10%, droppings in waves) under the same conditions: the alternation points to what differs, the feed batches; register 4 + register 2: Tuesday batches conforming, Saturday batches out of range on four columns (protein 18.8%, sodium 0.24%, moisture 14.7%, CV 30%).
•Mechanisms: soya G at 42.1% not recalculated → − 1.04 point of protein; fish meal H at 3% sodium with salt unchanged → sodium 0.24%; wetted maize "to be used quickly" → moisture 14.7%, bags that smell; mixing 3 to 4 min without pre-dilution → CV 28 to 33%, droppings in waves; scale + 6% → weak effect without alternation; water, season, chicks, disease ruled out.
•Causes ranked: 1 short mixing (35%), 2 soya not recalculated (30%), 3 salty fish meal (20%), 4 wetted maize (10%), 5 scale (5%); four out of five born on 20 September, when two suppliers came in without a report and the head stopped being there on Saturdays.
•Plan: bags blocked and retained sample to mycotoxin analysis, formula recalculated and dated the same day (G2-2026-11), job sheet with written time and monthly CV, report before manufacture, wetted lot to "DOUBTFUL", roof and pallets, daily test weight, head or trained second present, quarterly analyses, target FCR ≤ 1.82.
•What should have been done before: analyse before manufacturing, read the mass balance and the "done" time of the first Saturday, isolate the wetted maize, check the scale every morning, send the retained samples to the laboratory on day 24 of flock 2; a register you do not reread protects against nothing; the exam awards the specialisation certificate issued privately by NEXTEKCI.
15 min read · 5-question quiz

Frequently asked questions

How do you make your own broiler feed on the farm?

Making your own feed requires four stations in order: grinding the maize, weighing each ingredient (platform scale for the large ones, precision scale for salt, premix and amino acids), mixing for 8 to 10 minutes with pre-dilution of the small ingredients, bagging and labelling. Before that, you need a formula checked nutrient by nutrient (energy, protein, lysine, methionine, calcium, phosphorus, sodium) and raw materials checked at receipt, above all the moisture of the maize (14% at most). Level 11 of the NEXTEKCI School, in Agnibilékrou, teaches these basics; the 'Making feed on the farm, expert level' specialisation teaches how to design the workshop, formulate in a spreadsheet and prove the quality of every batch.

What protein level for a broiler grower feed?

In a hot climate, a broiler grower feed (15 to 28 days) generally aims for 20 to 21% crude protein, with 3,050 to 3,150 kcal of energy per kilo, at least 1.10% lysine and 0.45% methionine, 0.85 to 0.95% calcium and 0.40 to 0.45% available phosphorus. The starter (0 to 14 days) goes up to 22 to 23% protein, the finisher comes down towards 18%. Protein alone is not enough: a feed at 20% can be bad if lysine or methionine is missing. The NEXTEKCI School explains how to check every column in the spreadsheet and how to correct with the right ingredient, in the 'Making feed on the farm, expert level' specialisation.

How do you avoid mycotoxins in maize intended for poultry?

Mycotoxins, including aflatoxin, are produced by moulds that develop on damp maize (above 14% moisture) stored in the heat. Prevention comes down to four actions: buying maize dried to 14% within 72 hours of harvest, refusing lots with more than 2% mouldy grains or 5% pierced grains, storing on pallets 30 cm from the walls with air and a rotation of 6 to 8 weeks at most, and checking the temperature of the stack every week. Detection goes from the UV lamp to rapid kits and the laboratory, on a 10 kg sample taken at 100 points. The NEXTEKCI School, in Agnibilékrou, devotes a whole lesson to thresholds, exposure calculation and the management of a doubtful lot.

Can maize be replaced by cassava in chicken feed?

Yes, in part: well-dried cassava chips bring almost as much energy as maize (3,150 kcal per kilo against 3,300) but almost no protein (2.5% against 8.5%). They are included at 10 to 20% of the formula as mash, increasing the soybean meal and a little oil to compensate, and adding a little methionine. The chips must snap cleanly, be white and have no bitter almond smell, a sign of poorly removed hydrocyanic acid. The calculation shows that cassava only lowers the cost of the complete formula if it is worth less than about 60% of the price of maize. The NEXTEKCI School details this substitution calculation in its 'Making feed on the farm, expert level' specialisation.

Do you need a licence to make and sell poultry feed in Côte d'Ivoire?

Yes: in Côte d'Ivoire, the manufacture of animal feed intended for sale is a regulated activity that requires a licence issued by the services of the ministry in charge of animal resources. The exact conditions are given by the departmental or regional directorate, but they generally cover suitable, clean premises, a competent person for the formulas, manufacturing registers, retained samples, complete labelling and analyses of the feed produced. NEXTEKCI holds a licence for feed manufacturing, among its official licences, and that is the system its School teaches in Agnibilékrou. For own use, you should enquire with the same services.

Are pellets better than mash for chickens?

For the broiler, pellets bring real gains: less sorting and waste (3 to 5% of feed), a feed conversion ratio better by 2 to 5 points, better hygiene thanks to the heat of the press, less dust. But they require a steam conditioner, a press, a cooler, energy and know-how, and they can destroy vitamins and enzymes if the temperature exceeds 90 °C. For layers, mash suits better. Below one to two tonnes a day, pelleting is generally not profitable; a well-calibrated, well-mixed mash already recovers half the gap. The NEXTEKCI School teaches how to decide with a complete calculation using your own figures.

Can antibiotics or medicines be put in chicken feed?

Never without the veterinarian. A medicated feed is made only on the written prescription of a veterinarian, by an authorised manufacturer, with a quantity, a duration and a withdrawal period before slaughter or sale of eggs set by him. Antibiotics given 'as prevention' or 'to grow' build resistance and leave residues in meat and eggs; hormones are forbidden everywhere. Anticoccidials also fall under the veterinarian's programme. A farm workshop may use vitamin and mineral premixes, amino acids, enzymes and certain authorised additives; everything else goes through the veterinarian of the area. That is the rule the NEXTEKCI School teaches without exception.

How do you know whether farm-made feed is well mixed?

The simplest test is the coloured grain test: you add 500 g of coloured rice to the batch at the pre-dilution stage, take ten samples of 100 g from different bags after mixing, count the grains in each and check that all the counts lie between 70 and 130% of the mean; the coefficient of variation must stay under 10%. Beyond that, the mix has failed: some bags have too much salt and others no premix, which gives soft droppings in waves. Usual causes: mixing too short, small ingredients poured in without pre-dilution, overfilled mixer. The NEXTEKCI School, in Agnibilékrou, shows this test on video and builds it into the check of every batch.

In conclusion

By the end, you make a feed that is consistent from one batch to the next, you know why it changes when it does, you prove it with your registers and your retained samples, and you decide with figures, whether it is about a bag of cassava, an enzyme or a pellet press. The final exam covers an investigation case and a comparison of formulas; passing it awards the 'Making feed on the farm, expert level' specialisation certificate, issued privately by NEXTEKCI.

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