Animal feed is a formulated mixture created by nutritionists the dieticians of the animal feed world to provide the animal with the necessary balanced nutrients for proper growth, development and maintenance. Feed is designed to compensate for nutrients and supplements that may be absent from an animal’s natural diet.
Nutritionists
Animal nutritionists focus on the dietary needs of animals and work to formulate a nutritionally sound and balanced diet. This occupation requires a substantial science background in animal behavior, biology, chemistry, food processing and physics. Formulating a balanced diet is a complex process; every species requires different nutritional needs. For each animal feed and pet food company, there are animal nutritionists working side-by-side with scientists to formulate the animal diets.
A career as an animal nutritionist requires a bachelor’s degree in animal science or an animal science-related degree and many times a master’s degree and/or doctoral degree in animal nutrition.
Ingredients
There are more than 900 agricultural ingredients and co-products used to create animal and pet food diets. Ingredients include barley, corn, distiller’s grain, forage, fruits, minerals, sorghum, vegetables, vitamins and wheat. Co-products are the outputs from a manufacturing process or chemical reaction. Many animal source and vegetation co-products are used in the formulation of feed. These ingredients include, but are not limited to, animal protein, bakery co-products, blood meal, brewer’s yeast, citrus pulp, distiller’s grain, molasses, soybean meal and salt.
Co-products
A co-product is a secondary product that is recycled for another purpose. Co-products are commonly used in animal feeds and pet foods. It is a sustainable way to efficiently utilize products.
Feed Processing
Feed mills worldwide use four basic processes to produce animal feed: receiving raw ingredients from suppliers; creating a feed formula based on many years of research; mixing ingredients together to make a complete feed; and packaging and labeling feed to be shipped for commercial or retail purposes.
Receiving raw ingredients from suppliers is the most important process. Upon arrival, ingredients are weighed, tested and analyzed for various nutrients to ensure their quality and safety. This process allows nutritionists to accurately formulate feed for a specific species.
Testing
Laboratory testing is an important part of any quality control program because it measures specific components of a feed/ingredient sample to assure that it meets quality specifications. Tests involve chemical, physical and/or electronic measurement to determine the quality of a product in comparison to a predetermined standard.
Testing schemes should be developed by quality assurance, nutrition, procurement and production staff. Feed and ingredients are tested for moisture content, protein, fat quality, fat quantity, crude fiber, mycotoxins, pathogens and other key indicators of quality.
Quality Control
Quality control is a set of procedures followed to ensure quality of a product and all factors involved. Quality assurance begins with examination of incoming ingredients. Damage by weather, molds, heat and insects; filth; adulterants; and contaminants can be detected by the microscopist or trained assistants. Mixing quality can also be evaluated rapidly. The presence or absence of micro ingredients, minerals and vitamins are established by observation or by micro spot-testing.
Microscopy is one of the fastest and most fundamental, quality control techniques available for analyses of formula feed and feed ingredient. The various applications of feed microscopy range from identifying and quantifying contaminants and adulterations in supplier samples or incoming ingredients to providing customer support investigations and complaints and brand protection in the marketplace.
Feed microscopy can be divided into two major types qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative microscopy is the identification and evaluation of ingredients and foreign materials, alone or in mixtures, via either surface features or cellular characteristics. Quantitative microscopy is the subjective, proportioned measurement of ingredients in finished feeds or of contaminants and adulterants in ingredients, and involves examinations by both stereo- and compound microscopes.
Feed manufactures follow regulations governed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. FDA is responsible for the regulation of feed and implementation of policies through the state government and the Association of American Feed Control Officials. Numerous feed certification programs such as the American Feed Industry Association’s Safe Feed/Safe Food Certification Program are also available for additional compliance and regulation.
Certification Programs
AFIA offers four feed and pet food safety certification programs. The programs are designed to establish and promote generally accepted food safety guidelines designed to ensure continuous improvement in the delivery of a safe and wholesome feed supply for the growth and care of animals.
- FSC 32: Manufacturer of Pet Food, GFSI-benchmarked program designed specifically for pet food manufacturing and pet food ingredient manufacturing
- FSC 34: Manufacturer of Animal Feed, a GFSI-benchmarked program for feed and feed ingredient manufacturers
- FSC 36: Safe Feed/Safe Food Certification Program, a foundational program that provides compliance with the Food Safety Modernization Act
- International Safe Feed/Safe Food Certification Program, a FAMI-QS program that helps facilitate U.S. trade with European feed and ingredient customers by providing a tool to illustrate compliance with the European Union’s feed hygiene regulation, Regulation (EC) 183/2005
After a formula, or recipe, is developed, the ingredients are mixed together to make a complete feed. The mixing process is a crucial step in determining the outcome of the product. Ingredients can either be dry, liquid or moist. Dry bulk ingredients (i.e. cereal grains) are added to the mixer first then followed by other dry materials such as minerals and vitamins, or micro-ingredients to prevent a loss of minor ingredients. Liquids can then be either sprayed or added to the mixed ingredients. Moist ingredients are added last to create an adhesive consistency.
Liquid Feed
Liquid feed is used in cattle and dairy feed rations to provide a well-balanced mixture of nutritional supplements in a molasses base, which can be distributed in a feed tank/trough or added to another form of feed/hay. The benefit of using liquid feed is that the proteins encourage growth of microorganisms in the rumen, which contribute to the breakdown of fiber and forage.
Once the feed has been formulated and mixed, it will go through the final steps in the manufacturing process before animal consumption. Before being packaged, the feed goes through a pelleting process and just like human food, animal feed can have a variety of textures such as pelleted, flaked, crumbled, meal or extruded. The texture of the feed is determined by what it is intended for. For example, dry pet food goes through an extrusion process where the dough is cooked, shaped and dyed.
Manufacturers then determine how the feed product will be safely shipped to its destination. If the animal feed is prepared for retail purposes, the product will be bagged and tagged, where the feed goes through the federal and state labeling of ingredients process. By federal regulations, feed labels must explain the purpose of the feed, list its ingredients and how to safely administer the feed. State regulations will often require further explanation of feed ingredients; guarantee analysis, warnings and manufacturer information. If the animal feed is prepared for commercial purposes, then it will be distributed via bulk delivery through loadout bins and into trucks or rail cars on-site.
The animal feed production process is highly detailed, organized and regulated. It is also an important step to feeding the earth’s growing population. In 2013, 5 billion bushels of grain and 40 million tons of agriculture commodities made feed for 9.2 billion livestock animals, 70 million dogs and 74 million cats. When complete, animal feed is a balanced diet, meant to provide all necessary nutrients to the animals raised for consumption and our family pets that we care for and love.
