Feeding Complete Concentrate Pellets Containing Ground Grains or Blend of Steam-Flaked Grains and Other Concentrate Ingredients in Ruminant Nutrition – A Review

Abstract

The feed industry has attempted to encourage the animal husbandry sector to feed complete concentrate pellets containing ground grains in ruminant nutrition and thus prevent farmers from making concentrate in their farms. Reducing particle size using pre-pelleting grinding and pressing materials during pellet formation, plus starch gelatinization by heat treatment in the conditioner are key factors determining the extent and rate of starch digestion in ingested pellets. If prepelleting grinding of corn and barley grain for using in the pelleted concentrate results in ground materials of less than 1.8 mm mean particle size (especially in the case of barley grain which is highly fermentable), then it increases the rate of fermentability in the rumen which in turn increases the acidosis risk. Such situation and dissatisfaction from pellets feeding to ruminant have directed farmers to produce homemade mash concentrate which may include steam-flaked form of grains in the concentrate mixture. Pelleting process increases the time needed to collapse the pellet in the rumen so delays the access of microbes to fermentable organic matter. This counterbalance property highly depends on pellet size with highest effect obtained using 10 mm diameter pellets for cattle. Feeding separately steam-flaked grains (plus other pelleted/mash non-grain ingredients of concentrate) may give results similar to the complete concentrate pellets having ground grains prepared according to optimized recommendations (pellet diameter and grain mean particle size). Nonetheless cost benefit studies are necessary to adopt one of the above two optimized technologies that has higher starch utilization and lower fecal starch excretion by animal. In the situation where consuming steam-flaked grains has priority of application in the diet, it is strongly recommended to pellet non-grain portions of concentrate for obtaining numerous pellet advantages such as reducing transportation cost, dust, sorting and bird removal.

Feeding value of sorghum stover fed to tropical hair sheep as complete rations in chop, mash, pellet, and block forms

“…Higher voluntary feed intake in processed rations (mash, pellet, and block) might be explained by the avoidance of refusing unpalatable portions of roughage due to the decreased particle size. Besides, lesser retention time due to the higher rate of passage of the smaller feed particles in the mash could have favored intake to some extent at the expense of reduced digestibility [26].…”

A research review on coarse grain micronization

“…There are more than 10 big firms all over the world engaged in micronization of grain raw materials, some of them dating back to the nineteenth century. And more than 90% of them are engaged in the production of feed just for animals (Table 1) [5,6]. While in Russia, efforts in grain micronization are concentrated in research institutes.…”

“…The traditionally used mechanical processing of grain, such as crushing or dry conditioning, does not guarantee effective and healthy starch digestion in the gastrointestinal tract. Therefore, the use of thermal treatment methods of grain to maximise the absorption of nutrients by the rumen microorganisms and the animal in general is relevant [6]. Micronization is a fast (30-90 s) thermal treatment using infrared radiation (IR) [7] and has great potential for use in the feed industry due to its simple design and operation [8].…”

Nutritional value, productive performance, and economic efficiency response to the degree of steam‐flaked yellow corn in growing rabbits

“…The density of SFC is a sign of effective flaking and a range of 0.32–0.39 kg/L has been reported to be acceptable for dairy cows (Plascencia & Zinn, 1996). The flake thickness (FT) is defined by correcting the spacing between the rollers and it ranges from 0.4 to 2.0 mm (Ebrahimi, 2020). The processing index (PI) is a reliable method to quantitatively measure the extent of steam flaking.…”