About The Ration Formulation Programme
A ration is the feed offered for a given animal during a period of 24 hours while a balanced ration is one that furnishes all nutrients in such a proportions and amounts that it will properly nourish a particular animal for 24 hours. Essential nutrients for a balanced ration include water, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals and vitamins. Feed composition, requirement of specific nutrient ingredients and financial goals are important aspects of animal feed formulation. An optimized feed mixture is formulated for livestock development as well as for commercial purposes. Different nutrient ingredients are combined in such a way that the feed will provide energy and required nutrition at different stages of production. Development of dairy industry directly depends on the quality of feed supplied to the ruminants. Experience based judgment cannot be used to fed animals for consistent results.
Ration or balanced ration comprised of green fodder, dry fodder/ straw/ crop residues and concentrate mixture. Almost 35 green and dry fodders, 11 tree leaves and concentrate mixtures have been considered for formulation of ration. Concentrate mixtures, again divided into 4 categories for convenience of farmers to use the programme. In addition to type I and II concentrate mixture, home grown good quality (18% CP, 64% TDN), home grown average quality (15%, CP, 62% TDN) mixtures have also been added for formulation of ration. Requirement will be as per ICAR (2013) standard and recommended ration will be as per the user’s choice of ingredients. The productivity of our animals is not at par with their genetic potential, which is mainly attributed to imbalanced feeding practices. Mostly they are offered crop residues, locally available one or more ingredients like bran, oil-cakes, chunnies, grains etc and seasonally available green fodder. This leads to imbalance of various nutrients in diet. By imbalance we mean both underfeeding and overfeeding of nutrients. It is a well-established fact that no component solely can meet the requirement of animals so it is advised to offer combination of ingredients in well balanced proportion so as to meet out the demand of various nutrients. This simple programme targets the common farmers to help them out regarding feeding of balanced ration to animals as well as to utilise the locally available resources to fullest.
Ration formulation programme is a mathematical / linear programming to provide balanced ration to animals. Feeding as per standards and fulfilling the requirements are very difficult if we have so many ingredients in the ration. In the programme, we have tried to simplify it and made user friendly. After registering the user, he/ she have to enter the user profile, animal profile and feed/ fodder profile. In the output/ report file two report page will come viz., 1) Actual requirement of the animal as per ICAR (2013) standard and 2) recommended ration using feeds and fodders he/ she opted for. The requirement of energy in terms of total digestible nutrients (TDN) and protein in terms of crude protein (CP) have been balanced in the programme. Regarding the micro- nutrients, it is stated in the recommended ration that if mineral mixture and common salt is not added, then these are to be added in sufficient quantity to balance the micronutrients in the system. Your feedback is highly appreciable for improving the programme to serve the farmers of our nation.