What is Least Cost Formulation for Poultry Feeds?

The least cost formula for poultry feed refers to a formula that is both nutritionally and technically sound with a minimum cost of the ingredients that will be used in the poultry feeds.

Using the least cost feed formulation will help keep the costs low while helping you meet the nutritional requirements of your poultry. Poultry feeding is one aspect of poultry farming that the farmer simply has to get right. Poultry feeds generally account for anywhere between 60% and 70% of the production costs and a mistake can be devastating for many farmers. The least cost formula is a way to ensure you are getting things right at optimal pricing.

The poultry feed ingredients used in formulating poultry feeds do change frequently. The end users are not assured of a standardised poultry feed every season. Many manufacturers of poultry feeds will generally include vague descriptions of the ingredients used in formulating poultry feeds in order to obfuscate that fact. So you are unlikely to see a case where the manufacturer explicitly names the ingredients that they have used in formulating the poultry feeds. They will more likely use general terms such as “grains”, minerals etc.  This vague labelling allows them to interchange the ingredients that they use in formulating the poultry feeds at will.

However, the one who is likely to notice the change is a keen farmer. In many cases, a sudden change of the ingredients used in poultry feed formulation is likely to have an adverse impact on the production. Chickens, particularly, can be quite punishing when subjected to this kind of change and are unlikely to regain their erstwhile production levels before the sudden change in the ingredients used in the making the poultry feeds. For the farmer, this can have serious long term costs and will very likely have an impact on the profitability of your poultry farms.

Will Least Cost Feed Formulation Save You Money?

The idea of least cost formulation (LCF) is meet your target nutritional needs for your poultry at the lowest cost possible. Every poultry farm has a unique situation which necessitates the need for a specially formulated to meet their needs at the lowest cost possible.

Because of the variation in the needs of the individual farmers, the formula for least cost formulation of poultry feeds does not remain the same throughout the year. It will depend throughout the year depending on the individual requirements of the farmer and the availability of the feed ingredients in the region.