Except for being familiar with the working processing, there are other key points to make a scientific, practical and high economic benefit formula.

I. Flexible use of the nutrition standard

All of the nutrition standard are formulated in the specific conditions for specific objects. The specific objects are generally production performance index or economic index. For example the NRC formulate the nutrition standard of bacon pigs, aim of the standard is high growth speed and low feed conversion ratio of bacon pigs. (this standard isn’t suitable for miscellaneous pigs)

Considering from the point of market and economic, feed manufacturing enterprises should reference to the NRC standard and base of the domestic pig nutrition standard, and formulate their own nutrition standard. There are certain differences of nutrition standard among enterprises, but the standards are not public as the technical secret.

Generally the nutrition standards of enterprise are divided into several kinds:

First, nutrition standard to develop the best production performance. these kinds of standards are formulated based on the animal experiment;

Second, nutrition standard to reach to the highest economic benefit. nutrition level of these kinds of standards are lower than the first standards because there are unconventional feed raw materials of lower nutrition value in the formula. The integrated economy value of these kinds of formula are higher than the best production performance formula.

Third, nutrition standard of market orientation. In order to satisfy the special requirements of some market consumption groups, feed manufacturing enterprises would formulate standards of cheap manufacturer price under the condition of satisfy the specific production performance (low production level). 

Economic animals are of various species, take the broiler as an example, there are fast-growth white feather broiler, fast-growth yellow chicken, high quality yellow chicken, local chicken and son on. Especially for yellow feather broiler, the specie is complex. If they are divided by the time to market, there are about 50 days, 60 days, 80 days, 110 days and 140 days.

Most of the species do not have nutrition standard, the formulators should reference to the nutrition standard for similar species, analysis the species growth characteristics according to the experience, combine with the theoretical knowledge of animal physiology and nutrition, properly modify the nutrition standard, and formulate the standard step by step according to the practical application effect. Therefore, flexible use of the different standards is also a value embodiment of the experienced formulator.

Mean while, of the indexes for nutrition standard, formulators must have a specific cognition of the crude protein.

Nutrition of protein is mainly the nutrition of amino acid (research about small peptide nutrition is simple, ignored there), when formulating, ideal protein model can be used to formulate the feed. Ideal protein refers to the various kinds of available amino acid rate fit with the necessary amino acid rate that the animal need in a certain production stage, the protein of the highest amino acid bioavailability. Ideal protein model can effectively save the formula cost, enhance the production performance of animals. According to the protein “Cannikin Law”, by supplementing the low relative amount amino acid in the feed, the ratio of various kinds of amino acid reach to the ideal protein mode, deposition efficiency of amino acid in vivo the animals become the highest, reduce the amino acid metabolism waste, and lower the crude protein level of feed, achieve the effect of reducing the animals’ nitrogen metabolism burden and nitrogen exhaust to the environment.

There are two basic conditions to use ideal protein model: first, raw materials have digestible amino acid data, nutrition standard formulate digestible amino acid level; second, ideal protein model. At present, there are more research of ideal protein model for pork pig and broiler, different organization or scholar suggest different ideal protein models.  

Ideal protein model various according to species and growth stage, growth rate and physiological characteristics should be taken into consideration when choosing the model.

Big scale enterprises research the ideal protein model to formulate their own ideal protein model, which is more accurate. In the formula of the pork pig, if the digestible lysine, sulfur-containing amino acid, threonine, tryptophan level and ratio are considered, the formula of broiler can take level and ratio of digestible lysine, sulfur-containing amino acid, threonine, arginine and tryptophan into consideration. While formulating the nutrition standard data, the lower limit of crude protein can be ignored. In general cases, the crude protein content of these formula is lower than the formula which formulated by the total amino acid content data by 1-2 points. This can save the formula cost effectively and improve the stability of the formula.

In addition, while the formulator using the nutrition standard, it should be adjusted according to the seasons.

Set broiler feed as example, in hot summer, the heat stress is larger, the food consumption of broiler would reduce normally, in order to keep good production performance, the formula needed to be adjusted. First way, for purpose of meeting with animal protein acceptable daily intake, reduce the metabolic energy (broiler have the characteristic of “eat for energy”), increase the food consumption; another way is to use high quality grease in the formula to increase the metabolic energy, at the same time, use ideal protein model to improve and balance the available amino acid level, lower the crude protein level, reduce the heat consumption by high protein. Thus even if the food consumption is reduced, the valid nutrition acceptable daily intake can still satisfy the requirement of best production performance. As for premix feed, the addition standard should also be adjusted according to the practical production condition. If the feed environment is bad, stress is larger and food consumption is low, the addition standard of vitamins and mineral substance should be increased.

II. Selection of raw material and quality control

Different animals in different growth stage have different requests of raw materials. Select the suitable raw material is the key step of making good formula. Young animals have incomplete digestive function, selection of the raw material should care about the digestibility.

Set suckling pig feed as an example, the raw material should be easy to be digested and with good palatability. So the suckling pig feed and creep feed (first feed) have slap-up raw materials such as steam fish meal, dairy products, extruded soybean, first class corn, high quality vegetable oil and so on.

Adult animals can use more crude raw materials. Different species with different physiological characteristics have different requests about the raw material. Pig has developed gestation, raw materials of bad palatability should use as less as possible, but chicken feed does not need to consider about the palatability. Duck has better ability to digest crude raw materials, so crude feed is more valuable for duck.

One of the important evaluation index for the level of formula technical is the intelligent use of unconventional feed raw material. Unconventional feed raw material refers to the feed materials that use less is the formula or have not enough knowledge about the nutritive peculiarity and feed value.

Unconventional feed raw materials have wide source and complex ingredient, generally they have following characteristics:

1. Comparing with convention feed raw materials, unconventional feed raw materials have lower nutrition value and unbalanced nutritional ingredient;

2. Most of the unconventional feed raw materials contains ant nutritional factors or poison, can not be used with out dealing with, the amount must be limited while using;

3. Many unconventional feed raw materials are of bad palatability, low nutrition concentration and occupy the formula space;

4. Most of the unconventional feed raw materials are various in nutritional ingredient variation, the quality isn’t stable, they are influenced by multiply elements such as place of origin, process and store conditions;

5. Comparing with the conventional feed raw materials, nutritive value evaluate for most of the unconventional feed raw materials are not accurate for the reason of leak of data, no reliable feed database increasing the difficulty to design the formula.

Therefore, using unconventional feed raw materials in the formula can bring about obvious economic value. Mix up different raw materials can solve the problem of amino acid unbalance, which help a lot to improve the formula quality. For example, vegetable meal has low lysine, but high methionine and tryptophan, cottonseed meal has high arginine. Limit the usage amount of unconventional feed raw material in the formula can avoid the bad influence of its antinutritional factors and poison. The determination of the limit amount is also a test for the formulators.

Many large scale feed enterprises have complete checkout equipment which can checkout the content of nutrient for unconventional raw materials timey, and evaluate their nutritive value accurately. Based on the digestible amino acid can reflect the real value of unconventional raw materials, making the unconventional raw material formula more stable while using.

When using the unconventional feed raw materials, influence for process should be take into consideration. Raw materials such as cottonseed meal, vegetable meal, rice bran and so on have negative influence for pelleting, when using them, materials such as second-rate powder, wheat that with better caking property should be mixed in the formula; unconventional raw material might change the color of end product, if the market has higher request for the color, it would limit the usage in the formula; bad palatability materials such as vegetable meal can’t be used too much in pig feed; some of the special animals are sensitive about the poison content in the unconventional raw materials, gossypol content in cottonseed meal can influence the breed function of animals, so it should be avoid in these kinds of species.

Species control must be improved while using unconventional feed raw materials. Quality of unconventional raw materials fluctuate larger. take DDGS as an example, the color can be pale yellow, deep yellow and brown, the darker color, the lower digest ratio. Variation of fat content ranks from 5% to 12%. For each batch of raw material, key nutrient content should be detected and revise the nutrition data (including energy, amino acid true nutritive value) based on its quality. This can ensure the product stability of the unconventional raw materials. Control the unconventional raw materials’ quality, should select the key control index, when using rice bran, the fat content and freshness (flavor) are the key control index; when using vegetable meal, the protein level and protein solubility are key index; when using peanut meal, aflatoxin is the key index; when using mixed oil, peroxide value and MDA value are the key index.

III. Intelligent use of additive

Except for the additive for nutritive value (decavitamin micro-mineral element, amino acid), other various additives should be take into consideration for completing the quality of formula.

1. Mildew preventive and antioxidant: confirm the amount rationally according to the climate condition and storage time of feed. In the hot and humid seasons, usage amount of mildew preventive and antioxidant should be increased while controlling the end product moisture. As for fast consumption feed, usage amount of mildew preventive and antioxidant can be reduced or canceled.

2. Antibiotic: in allusion to the bad breeding environment, add preventability antibiotic in the feed can not only maintain the health of animals but also improve the production performance. But along with the increasing focus on the food safety, it is necessary to prevent abuse of antibiotic. Under present conditions, according to the feed medicated premix usage specification issued by the state, select suitable antibiotic from appendix 1, and not increase the addition amount of antibiotic at will, would reach to the aim of improve the production performance as well as reduce the bad influence brought by usage of antibiotic.

3. Antibiotic substitution: weather the usage of the antibiotic can be canceled or not is largely decided by the effect and popularize of the antibiotic substitution. These kinds of products have many types, such as probiotics, soluble microbial products, herbs, egg yolk antibody, lysozyme, functional oligosaccharide and so on. If these products are stable in quality and can be used intelligently, it would effects good.

4. Zymin: Usage of zymin is increasingly general. The most manure technology and most stable effect is the technology of produce and use of phytase. In condition of calcium hydrophosphate source shortage, using the phytase can save the cost and reduce waste. Xylanase has obvious effect used in raw materials such as wheat and furfur. β- mannose has better effect in bean meal formula. As for complex phosphoesterasum, selection and usage should be based on the feed formula raw material (types and content of zymin). Generally, zymin has better effect in poultry feed rather than in pig feed. If using the solid zymin, the thermal endurance of zymin should be take into consideration when pelleting.