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Animal feed

or forage is a general term for all kinds of pet food for companion animals. regarding to the application the term animal feed is divided into swill, cattle food, poultry food and cat food. Mixed feed consists of different mixed components.

Due to that every animal feed has a varying water content in the first step of analysis the dried matter has to be determined. Then additional analysis can be done which determines the content of and cellulose. The ingredients of animal feed are often specified according to the Weender Futtermittelanalyse.

In agriculture animal feed is a significant economical parameter. Besides the components the availability is a very important point which depends on the animal species: e.g. pigs as omnivores are the excellent feed user, horses are known as problematic and often their feed plan has to be fixed according to every individual animal. The mineral content is determined by combustion of feed samples. The crude ash contains salts of alkaline and alkaline earth metals; the mineral content can be calculated by the amount of this metals.

Normally the term animal feed means vegetable feed. Animal feed can be differentiated into starch-rich, oil-rich and protein-rich feed. To the starchy-rich e.g. belong potatoes, manioc and millet as well as wheat, barley, oat, rye and corn; they are mainly suited for ruminant animals, poultry and pigs. Oil-rich feed are gained from oil seed from rape, soy, sun flowers, flax seed, sesame or peanuts; they are not really wide-spread since these seed is mainly used for industrial purposes. To the protein-rich feed mainly belong by-products from oil extraction or alcohol production such as mash, draff or yeast. Further animal feed e.g. is fish meal or second product from industrial production such as bran, pomace, molasses or sugar beet pulp from sugar industry. Special feed e.g. is organic feed, diet feed, protein concentrate and the so-called “RAM-feed” which is a protein- and phosphor-poor food for fattening. Mineral feed often consists of anorganic components and is a special kind feed used for the addition of trace elements and vitamins. They are differentiated into mass elements as calcium, phosphor, potassium, sodium, magnesium, chlorine, and sulphur and trace elements as iron, copper, iodine, manganese, molybdenum, selenium and zinc.

Feed pellets are produced in pellet plants (pelleting machines). The material is pressed through a steel die under high pressure, at the outlet the strings are cut of and the dust is removed by screening. By compaction the volume reduces by approx. 66%.