Prototype for Animals Feed Blocks | ||||
| Journal of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering | ||||
| Article 1, Volume 11, Issue 11, November 2020, Page 601-608 PDF (1.68 MB) | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/jssae.2020.135638 | ||||
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| Authors | ||||
T. H. EL-Shabrawy  1; M. A. Al-Rajhi2
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| 1Agric. Eng. Dept., Agric. Fac. Mansoura Univ. | ||||
| 2Senior Researcher, Agric. Eng. Research institute, Agric. Research Center, Egypt | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| The main objectives of this research are to develop a formulation prototype for animal feed blocks from agricultural residues by compressing and thermal molding a mix of chopped residues, molasses and with or without gluten to a desired shape and weight. The prototype included three main units: power and power transmission unit; feed materials mixing unit and thermal compacting unit. Residues of rice straw, corn stalks and wheat straw were chopped into small pieces and experiments were conducted to test the formulation prototype on three mixing ratios of (2:1:1, 1:2:1 and 1:1:2) for the mentioned agricultural residues, respectively. Three ratios of additions molasses (10, 15and 20 %), with or without adding binder material (gluten) and with or without (thermal compact process) to measure the feed block shear force, total bacterial counts, moisture content and economic evaluation after one day, one month, two months and three months of feed blocks processing, respectively. The results indicated that minimum shear force (1.3 N) was obtained at feed mixing ratio of 1:1:2, additions molasses ratio of 20 %, without adding gluten, without thermal treatment after 3 months. The minimum total bacterial counts (12 CFU/g) was obtained at feed mixing ratio of 1:1:2, additions molasses ratio of 10 %, with adding gluten, with thermal treatment after 1 day. The minimum moisture content (17.8 %) was obtained at feed mixing ratio of 2:1:1, additions molasses ratio of 10 %, with adding gluten, with thermal treatment after 1 day. The total operation cost was about 1.14 LE/kg. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| agricultural residues; mixing; formation; feed block; animal feed | ||||
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