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Animal feed is an important input to animal agriculture, and is frequently the main cost of the raising or keeping of animals. Farms typically try to reduce cost for this food, by growing their own, grazing animals, or supplementing expensive feeds with substitutes, such as food waste like spent grain from beer brewing .
Fodder includes hay, straw, silage, compressed and pelleted feeds, oils and mixed rations, and sprouted grains and legumes (such as bean sprouts, fresh malt, or spent malt). Most animal feed is from plants, but some manufacturers add ingredients to processed feeds that are of animal origin.
In animal husbandry, a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO), as defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is an intensive animal feeding operation (AFO) in which over 1,000 animal units are confined for over 45 days a year. An animal unit is the equivalent of 1,000 pounds of "live" animal weight. [1]
Feed manufacturing refers to the process of producing animal feed from raw agricultural products. Fodder produced by manufacturing is formulated to meet specific animal nutrition requirements for different species of animals at different life stages.
The problem becomes more complicated as other feedstuffs containing animal by-products are still allowed to be fed to other non-ruminants (chickens, cats, dogs, horses, pigs, etc.). Therefore, at a feed mill mixing feed for pigs, for instance, there is still the possibility of cross-contamination of feed going to cattle. [44]
The definition of an AFO was developed by the EPA as a regulatory definition to delineate confined feeding of beef cattle, dairy cattle, horses, swine, sheep, poultry, or other livestock from pasture-based systems (grazing systems were not meant to be regulated by EPA) for enforcement of the Clean Water Act.
The hay produced by these meadows is species rich and was traditionally used to feed horses. [5] Oat, barley, and wheat plant materials are occasionally cut green and made into hay for animal fodder, and more usually used in the form of straw, a harvest byproduct of stems and dead leaves that are baled after the grain has been harvested and ...
Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin and contains essential nutrients such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ingested by an organism and assimilated by the organism's cells to provide energy, maintain life, or stimulate growth.