Commercial turkey feed manufacturing often requires high throughput and high levels of fat, resulting in poor pellet quality, according to K.G.S. Wamsley and J.S. Moritz of West Virginia University.

In a paper in Journal of Applied Poultry Research, they explain that many mills use low mixer-added fat (MAF) to improve ingredient binding and pellet quality but this technique may decrease feed nutrient digestibility.

They conducted two experiments to determine the best feed manufacture technique (MTECH) to maximise pellet quality and maintain amino acid digestibility of commercial-type turkey diets.

Experiment 1 was a three-binder (binder 1, binder 2 or natural binder) × two-MTECH factorial design that used commercial-type turkey starter diets manufactured at West Virginia University’s pilot feed mill. The MTECH treatments were one per cent MAF + 38.1-mm die (MTECH1) or three per cent MAF + 44.9-mm die (MTECH2).

In experiment 1, both binders improved pellet quality. Employing MTECH2 decreased pellet quality minimally (by around five per cent by the modified pellet durability index) and pellet mill electrical energy usage by around 15 per cent).

Diets that contained binder 1 - the marginally better binder - and natural binder used at each MTECH were chosen to test amino acid digestibility using the standardised digestibility assay with caecectomised roosters in experiment 2.

The inclusion of binder 1 improved the digestibility of several tested amino acids. There was a binder × MTECH interaction, in that when binder was removed from diets manufactured utilising MTECH1, the digestibility of some amino acids decreased, whereas MTECH2 maintained high amino acid digestibility regardless of binder.

Reference

^{Wamsley K.G.S. and J.S. Moritz. 2013. Resolving poor pellet quality and maintaining amino acid digestibility in commercial turkey diet feed manufacture. J. Appl. Poult. Res. 22(3):439-446. doi:10.3382/japr.2012-00657}

October 2013