Royce Samford

I agree completely with Dr. Tokach as far as he went. In real production programs, most protein sources are fairly expensive and are often unbalanced in their amino acid supply. Even if they are not the "major" amino acids we must be aware of making a severe effort to establish and maintain not only the supply but the balance of amino acids --particularly in the monogastric.

Basically supports most real world experience. Feeding to meet the requirement of AA is more important than trying to force production with poorly balanced CP levels. Increased CP levels also normally result in depressed energy intake and increased energy expenditure to convert the excess protein fed to usable energy. So you get a double reduction in production efficiency by not feeding a corre ...

Congratulations on an excellent producer oriented paper on stimulating and strengthening the animal's immune system! We often forget the basic concepts when we are trying to put nutrition and management systems in place for a livestock operator. Quite often remembering the "old school" information and covering the basics first is the best way for us to make solid progress in animal production.

Mike gave essentially a very concise response. Trace mineral addition is affected by the form of mineral added and also the amount and strength of the various inhibiting products contained in the feed. Most "nutrient requirements" are determined under fairly controlled conditions with most of the variables of feeding controlled. This is what we attempt to copy in our controlled feeding programs ...

It is necessary to know and have experience on the specific pelleting equipment and to know what the feeding program requires to understand the specific requirements for quality pellets. This is demonstrated by the different answers already given for the "best" conditioning. Ration formulation, grinding processes, amount of handling the pellet goes through, the climate it is processed in, etc. w ...

I intended to add that it may be more efficient to evaluate what your machine can do efficiently to process the soybeans than to ask it to do something for which it is not intended. Quite often, working to produce the best product available from our equipment is still preferential to not working to improve the feeding value of the original grain or product we need to work with. That is where you h ...

We have a large number of "extruders" available on a world-wide basis. Many of these were developed for a specific use/product and will not work to provide products drastically different from the original purpose. That does not mean the extruder described is not acceptable for its intended purpose but was simply not designed to do a different process. I agree with Dr. Albin that the conditions ...

As pointed out in some earlier discussions, the use of supplemental by-pass amino acids is economically justified either to promote additional milk production or to allow the use of more economical sources of supplemental protein (amino acids). My exerience is that we usually are more economical in working first with locally available feedstuffs than starting to add the more expensive by-pass amin ...

A very good piece of work discussing alternative feed ingredients. The results are very similar to field work I have done regarding use of cull beans and/or chick peas in cattle diets. The comments about some negative effects also reflect what I have seen if inclusion levels or total amount of the beans/peas are pushed too high. Maximum acceptable levels are usually reached before the economica ...

Organic farming--either crops or animal is basically not a feasible way for farmers with limited access to capital or inputs to operate. The ability to get "organic certified" inputs in remote or primitive systems is economically impossible and the ability to source the inputs is unfeasible. Producers with limited resources must proceed in a way that allows them to maximize the resources available ...