Animal Feed Formulation

Who it is for. Beginners with no formal certificate, including school leavers, women's groups and persons with disabilities. National Proficiency I is the first level of Ghana's TVET framework.

Why feed formulation

• In Ghana, feed is reported to be about 70% of the cost of producing poultry, and maize and soybeans together make up most of a poultry feed.
• Good feed is also what drives the three things farmers ask for: strong, healthy young (more piglets and lambs born alive, heavier at birth, more milk), good eggs (strong shell, good yolk, big enough eggs, and laying for many months) and fewer deaths.
• This Level 1 module teaches simple, complete recipes you mix by hand. Level 2 teaches least-cost mixing, premixes and tables; Level 3 teaches software, lab tests and automation.

How the module works

Each unit has learning outcomes, performance criteria, the range and the evidence your assessor needs. You are judged Competent or Not Yet Competent. About 70% of the time is practical, following CTVET's Oil Palm programme split of about 30% school and 70% workplace.

How to read the recipes

Every recipe in this module is a table with five columns: the ingredient, kg per 100 kg, kg per 50 kg bag, grams per 10 kg batch (for a small keeper), and what the ingredient gives the animal. Under each table is a check table that compares what the mix supplies with what the breeder guide or nutrition table asks for.

• The totals were worked out by a computer script from the ingredient values in Feedipedia, and the arithmetic was checked so each recipe adds to exactly 100 kg. The ingredient values are averages; your maize or bran may differ, so treat the totals as a good starting point. Level 3 teaches lab tests.
• Lysine and methionine in the tables are total amounts. Where a breeder guide gives digestible amounts, we divided by 0.88 to get a total target. That 0.88 is a teaching assumption, not a figure from a guide.
• Phosphorus: about three quarters of the phosphorus in plant ingredients is locked up and animals cannot use it. We counted one quarter of plant phosphorus, and all the phosphorus in fish meal and dicalcium phosphate, as available. This is a simple estimate.
• Where an ingredient is "to confirm" or a figure is "not verified", that means the author could not confirm it from a source. Examples are labelled example.

Competency standard

Range. Poultry, pigs, sheep, cattle and horses. Evidence. Oral questions; ingredient table filled in; a feed bag label read aloud.

The six nutrient groups (plain words)

(Teaching explanation; the numbers that follow are sourced.)

• Water comes first. Hens at a comfortable temperature drink about 1.8 to 2 times as much water as the weight of feed they eat, and above 30 °C about 5 times as much. A growing pig drinks about 2 to 3 kg of water for each kg of dry feed.
• Protein is really amino acids. Lysine, methionine, threonine and tryptophan are the amino acids most likely to run short in pig and poultry feeds. Breeder guides ask for digestible amino acids, and say crude protein "will vary with raw material used". So we aim for the amino acids, not just a protein number.
• Salt is a nutrient too. Taking salt out of a pig's diet is one of the most common nutritional deficiencies, and signs appear within 3 days.
• Vitamins and trace minerals are bought, not grown. Maize and bran do not carry enough stable vitamins A, D3, B12 or trace minerals; breeder guides tell you to add a premix made to their specification.

What good feeding gives you

• Eggs: a good white-egg hen should lay 95 to 97% at peak and keep laying: about 471 to 487 eggs per hen housed by 100 weeks. A brown layer should reach about 95% laying by week 30.
• Egg size and shell: egg size is adjusted with body weight, protein, methionine and linoleic acid (a fatty acid in oil and maize) in the feed. Shell quality depends on calcium at the right amount and the right particle size.
• Strong young: most deaths of lamb embryos happen in the first 25 days after mating and are linked to poor nutrition. Feeding ewes extra before breeding, called flushing, raises the lambing percentage by 10 to 20%.
• Fewer deaths: a good weaner pig herd loses about 2.5% or less of pigs between 7 and 20 kg, and the best loses 0.5%.

Ingredient guide: what each one gives and where to get it

Prices are asking prices seen on Jiji Ghana between 14 September and 8 October 2026. They change often and can be bargained. Where Jiji did not state the bag size, this book does not work out a price per kg. Names of agro-input shops and Makola or Kantamanto traders were not verified; ask your Municipal Agric office or a feed mill for the nearest dealer. Feed mills named in Ghana include De Heus (Koudijs) at Tema and Agricare in Kumasi.

Course cap below is the highest amount this book uses in a recipe for that animal. It is deliberately lower than what trials have reached, so that performance is never lowered (author's judgement based on the trial limits in Feedipedia).

What must be imported, and why local ingredients cannot replace it

Local ingredients first. But three things cannot be made well from local ones:

1. Vitamin-mineral premix. Vitamins A, D3, E, K, B12, choline, selenium, iodine, manganese, zinc and copper are in only trace amounts in maize and bran. Breeder guides give exact amounts per kg of feed; no Ghana source of stable vitamin A, D or B12 was found.
2. Synthetic methionine. Maize and soybean meal give only about 0.27% and 1.39% methionine plus cystine as fed, against needs of about 0.7 to 1.0% for layers and broilers. Fish meal helps but is variable and costs more.
3. Synthetic lysine. Maize has about 0.21% lysine, while a 25 to 50 kg pig needs 1.12%. Soybean meal alone would overshoot the protein and waste money.

Soybean meal itself is both grown in northern Ghana and imported.

Reading a feed bag

Competency standard

Range. Layers (brown commercial strains), broilers, one 50 kg bag per recipe. Evidence. Weighed and mixed bag; check table read aloud; oral questions.

Layers: the feeding stages

Commercial layers eat four feeds before they come into lay. Change the feed by body weight, not only by age.

Brown layers such as Lohmann Brown, ISA Brown or Hy-Line Brown are the common type; which strain is most common in Ghana was not verified. The tables below follow the Lohmann Brown-Lite guide.

Never limit feed to a chart. Lohmann says "there is no danger in wasting feed" by feeding freely, but real danger in holding birds back.

Weigh a sample of birds every week. Aim for more than 85% of birds within 10% of the average weight (uniformity).

Recipe 1: Layer chick starter

Layer chick starter (week 1 to 3).

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Recipe 2: Layer grower

Layer grower (week 4 to 8).

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Recipe 3: Layer developer

Layer developer (week 9 to 16).

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Wheat bran at 20% is how this recipe reaches the high fibre the guide asks for. Energy is below the guide minimum on purpose; this is the "reduced density" feed for the developer stage.

Recipe 4: Pre-layer feed

Pre-layer feed (week 17 until 5 percent lay; about 10 days).

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Layers: quality eggs, strong shells and persistency

Calcium and particle size. A hen needs most of her shell calcium from limestone she can hold in her gizzard through the night. So part of the limestone must be coarse. Hy-Line's fine:coarse split is 40:60 for weeks 18 to 32, 35:65 for weeks 33 to 55, 30:70 for weeks 56 to 72 and 25:75 later. Lohmann gives fine (0 to 0.5 mm) 30% and coarse (1.5 to 3.5 mm) 70% for pre-peak and phase 1, and coarse limestone can be partly replaced by oyster shell.

• In Layer feed 1 and 2 below, buy limestone or oyster shell in two grades and mix them in the proportion above. Coarse oyster shell is a good local coarse source.
• Never use dolomitic limestone for poultry.

Egg size depends on how big the hen is when she starts laying, and on protein, methionine and linoleic acid in her feed. Hy-Line moves the light-house flock to the laying house at 1200 g for early egg numbers or 1250 g for larger eggs.

Persistency (laying for many months): stay on the breed curve. The things the guides name are body weight at the start of lay, flock uniformity of 85% or better, calcium and phosphorus changed by phase, keeping feed intake up in the heat, and clean water. Hy-Line says that when production stays high, move to the calcium and phosphorus of the next phase; outstanding hens need more calcium and less phosphorus as they age.

Light. Never increase hours of light while rearing; never decrease hours of light in lay. Ghana lies at about 5 to 11 degrees north, so days are close to 12 hours all year (author's inference). An open-sided house needs lights to give 15 to 16 hours in lay, and pullets must not see lengthening days. Hy-Line reaches 15 to 16 hours by the end of lay.

Water. Too much salt in drinking water can permanently harm shell quality.

Recipe 5: Layer feed 1 (5% lay to week 40)

Layer feed 1 (5 percent lay to week 40).

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Recipe 6: Layer feed 2 (week 41 onward)

Layer feed 2 (week 41 onward).

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Why the energy is a bit low, and what hens do about it. Ghana maize gives less energy than the guide minimum. Hens "adjust their intake to the nutrient density of the feed", eating more when the feed is weaker, so expect them to eat roughly 5 to 10% more than the chart. That is good; do not hold them back. Because they eat more, the calcium per day is still above the 4.0 g a day that Hy-Line gives for weeks 18 to 32. A little vegetable oil would raise energy, but its energy value was not verified for this module; ask a nutritionist or Level 2.

Hot weather. Hens eat less when it is hot, and each 0.5 °C above 22 °C lowers the energy a hen needs by about 1.8 kcal a day. To keep intake up, feed in the cool parts of the day, keep water cool and clean, and ask your supplier for a premix with vitamins and trace minerals raised by 30% in the pre-peak feed; Hy-Line says this can help. Vitamin C at 100 to 200 mg per kg of feed can help in heat stress.

Stop-and-think. If egg numbers fall, check these in order: water, light, house heat, body weight, feed intake, then feed mix.

Broilers

Broilers grow fast and need rich feed. Ross sets three feeds: starter (day 0 to 10), grower (day 11 to 24) and finisher (day 25 to market), and a withdrawal feed fed at the end to meet medicine withdrawal times. Many Ghanaian farmers sell broilers at 5 to 6 weeks; the Cobb 500 table gives 1,116 g at 21 days, 1,783 g at 28 days, 2,521 g at 35 days and 3,278 g at 42 days, using 1,320, 2,359, 3,635 and 5,100 g of feed in all. Cobb says these are targets and real results vary by country.

The first week matters: Cobb's chart shows a chick of 42 g at hatch weighing 202 g at day 7. Water must be found within hours, and the starter must be fine and crumbly.

The broiler recipes use heated full-fat soya, because Ghana maize alone gives too little energy. If you cannot get heated full-fat soya, buy a ready-made broiler feed from a mill instead of replacing it with a cheaper ingredient.

Recipe 7: Broiler starter

Broiler starter (day 0 to 10).

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Recipe 8: Broiler grower

Broiler grower (day 11 to 24).

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Recipe 9: Broiler finisher

Broiler finisher (day 25 to market).

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Energy gap. The tables show that energy is below the Ross target. Fast-growing broilers will grow a little slower on this feed than on a Ross-type feed with added oil. We do not have a verified energy value for palm oil, so we do not give an oil recipe; ask a feed nutritionist or Level 2. Do not "fix" it by adding cassava or more bran: that lowers growth more.

Withdrawal feed. If birds have had a medicine, a withdrawal feed (made like the finisher but without the drug) is fed until the withdrawal time on the label has passed. Never sell birds or eggs within the withdrawal period. The vet gives the time.

Breeders

Parent stock (breeders) are fed by weight on a strict chart, not freely, and their feeds have more vitamins and trace minerals. This module does not give breeder recipes; ask the breeder company for the feed programme, or see Level 2.

Poultry dangers

Competency standard

Range. Pigs from piglet to boar; sheep (Djallonke and cross types) from lamb to ewe. Evidence. Mixed bags; stage chart; oral questions.

Pigs: feeding stages and amounts

Gilts are fed freely until bred, then cut back. Feed lactating sows wet feed, in 2 or more meals, in cool parts of the day; intake rises with wet feed and 15 hours of light. A sow can drink 15 to 25 litres a day. Gestation lasts about 114 days.

Good weaner results from 7 to 20 kg are gains of 400, 475 and 550 g a day (good, better, best) and a feed conversion of 1.6, 1.5 and 1.4. From 20 to 105 kg pigs gain about 776 g a day and need 3.25 kg of feed per kg of gain.

Pig deaths and weak piglets are cut by giving colostrum, a warm farrowing area, iron by injection from the vet (never DIY), creep feed from 7 days, and keeping the sow eating. Do not cut a sow's protein too hard: going from 16 to 18% down to 12 to 14% crude protein reduced her intake and her piglets' weaning weight.

Recipe notes. All recipes below were checked for energy, lysine, calcium and phosphorus. They were not checked for threonine or tryptophan; Level 2 does that. Pig energy is shown as digestible energy (DE); the NRC table gives metabolisable energy (ME), and the guide DE below is ME multiplied by 1.027, the ratio in the sow table.

Recipe 10: Piglet creep feed

Piglet creep feed (7 days to 10 kg).

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Piglets under 10 kg need a very rich, easily digested feed. This home mix cannot match a factory creep feed in every nutrient. If you can, buy a ready creep feed from a mill for the first weeks, and mix your own from the starter on.

Recipe 11: Piglet starter (10 to 25 kg)

Piglet starter (10 to 25 kg).

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Recipe 12: Pig grower (25 to 50 kg)

Pig grower (25 to 50 kg).

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Recipe 13: Pig finisher (50 to 100 kg)

Pig finisher (50 to 100 kg).

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Recipe 14: Pregnant sow and boar feed

Pregnant sow and boar feed.

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Recipe 15: Lactating sow feed

Lactating sow feed.

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Pig limits used here. Wheat bran 5% in growers, 10% in finishers and 25% in pregnant sows; fish meal not above 5%; no cottonseed cake for sows (it caused early farrowing at 10%). A recipe copied from a university lecture that used 34.7% bran in a 20 to 60 kg pig was too low in energy and lysine (0.78% lysine against 1.12% needed at 25 to 50 kg), so we do not copy it.

Sheep

Common Ghana breeds are the Djallonke (West African Dwarf) and Sahelian cross types. No Ghana table of Djallonke feed needs was found, so the figures below come from US extension tables for larger ewes. Weigh your ewes. Feed in proportion to body weight and adjust by body condition score. The scaling to a smaller ewe is the author's judgement, not a verified figure.

What a ewe needs. Needs are lowest at maintenance, rise through pregnancy and are highest in the first 8 to 10 weeks of lactation. After lambing, her energy need rises 30% and her protein need 55%. Two thirds of the lamb's weight is gained in the last six weeks. A ewe carrying twins needs much more than a ewe with one lamb.

TDN is total digestible nutrients, a way to count energy.

Feeding plan (key moments).

1. Flushing (2 weeks before and 2 weeks into mating): feed extra, for example 0.35 to 0.45 kg of grain for the big US ewe, or good pasture. It raises lambing percentage by 10 to 20%.
2. Early pregnancy: hay or grass; keep her in condition 2.5 to 3.
3. Last 6 weeks: start the concentrate (Recipe 17) at 0.35 to 0.45 kg for the big ewe, scaled to your ewe's weight. This prevents pregnancy toxaemia, weak lambs and low milk. Do not overfeed grain: very large lambs mean hard births.
4. Lactation: about 0.45 kg of concentrate for each lamb she is nursing (US ewe). Aim for body condition 3.5 at lambing and 2.5 at weaning. Water: about 5.7 L a day for a nursing ewe.

Hay and grass base. Feed roughage first. Guinea grass hay is about 8.2% protein, elephant grass hay about 9.2%, stylo hay about 8.8% and cowpea hay about 13.5%. A maintenance diet needs at least 7% protein, so poor hay alone does not carry a pregnant or milking ewe. Cowpea hay and stylo hay raise the protein of the roughage.

Lambs. Offer creep feed from 7 days. It should be 18 to 20% crude protein, low fibre and natural protein only (no urea), with calcium and phosphorus kept at about 2 to 1 using limestone, to guard against urinary stones. Allow about 5 cm of trough space per lamb. Heavy cottonseed cake must not go to young lambs. In Ghana, feeding both the dam and the lamb raised pre-weaning gain by 62.7% compared with feeding neither.

Recipe 16: Lamb creep feed

Lamb creep feed (from 7 days of age). No premix: use a free-choice mineral block (copper-free for sheep).

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Recipe 17: Ewe concentrate

Ewe concentrate (flushing, late pregnancy, lactation). No premix: use a free-choice mineral block (copper-free for sheep).

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Neither sheep recipe uses a premix, because poultry and pig premixes carry copper. For trace minerals give a copper-free sheep mineral salt block free choice. A copper-free "yellow" 10 kg block for sheep and lactating dairy cows and a copper-containing "red" block for beef cattle were both GH¢215 on Jiji on 27 September 2026. Check the label before you buy.

Competency standard

Range. Calves, dairy cows, beef cattle and a riding horse. Evidence. Mixed supplement; ration written; oral questions.

Calves

Follow this order:

1. Colostrum: calves can only absorb antibodies for the first 24 hours; good colostrum has more than 50 g of antibody per litre. Give it as early as possible. Ideally within an hour of birth and at least by 6 hours.
2. Milk or milk replacer for at least 6 weeks; a calf should double its birth weight by 8 weeks. Milk should be clean: bacteria counts under 20,000 per ml.
3. Water free choice from day 1: calves with water gained 0.31 against 0.18 kg a day and ate 11.8 against 8.2 kg of starter in one trial.
4. Calf starter within the first 7 days, small handfuls (Recipe 18). Wean when the calf eats at least 1.4 kg of starter for 3 days in a row and is at least 6 weeks old, by dropping one milk feed a day over 7 days or more.
5. Hay only after weaning. Pre-weaned calves must not get wet forage. Keep calves in the same pen for a week after weaning.

A small amount (3 to 5%) of chopped fibre in the starter may prevent bloat. No urea for young calves.

Recipe 18: Calf starter

Calf starter (from day 7). No premix: use a free-choice mineral block (copper-free for sheep).

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Dairy cows

The big dairy tables describe cows giving 35 to 55 kg of milk a day. Ghanaian smallholder cows on the Accra Plains give much less: about 1.35 to 3.6 kg a day under natural pasture. So scale down. Protein for cows giving 27 kg of milk is 14.5% of the diet, rising to 18.3% at 55 kg. A cow giving 5 to 15 kg needs a lower-protein concentrate with good forage.

Rule of thumb for smallholders in the tropics: about 0.5 kg of concentrate for each kg of milk. Going above 1 kg of concentrate to 1 kg of milk risks acidosis when fibre is short. Better forage moves the ratio to 1:2 or 1:3. In one Accra Plains trial, 2.5 kg a day of concentrate for 10 weeks in the dry season raised daily milk from 1.55 to 1.94 litres.

• Dry cows: far-off dry cows need about 12% protein, and close-up cows (within 30 days of calving) about 14.3%. Do not overfeed calcium and phosphorus to dry cows; phosphorus above 0.5% may promote milk fever.
• Fibre first. Cows eat about 3 to 4% of body weight in dry matter. High-yield cows still need at least 25 to 30% fibre (NDF) in the diet. Rumen fibre digestion falls when acidity falls below pH 6.2.
• Water: about 5 cm of trough space per cow; salt and potassium help in heat stress.

Recipe 19: Dairy cow concentrate

Dairy cow concentrate. No premix: use a free-choice mineral block (copper-free for sheep).

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

The recipe gives the concentrate only. Feed good grass, hay, silage or crop residues as the main diet. Cottonseed cake is left out because gossypol lowers fertility in breeding stock. Palm kernel cake is kept to 10%, well under the 15% to 50% the dairy references allow. Give a cattle salt-and-mineral block with copper free choice, kept away from sheep.

Beef cattle

Beef cattle drink 0.06 to 0.20 litres per kg body weight a day. Needed minerals include calcium 0.40 to 1.00% and phosphorus 0.20 to 0.40% of the diet, with a calcium to phosphorus ratio of 1:1 to 2:1, preferably 1.5:1 to 2:1. Salt 0.2 to 0.5% of the diet. Trace-mineral salt is over 90 to 95% salt and is not a complete mineral supplement. No Ghana figure for beef cattle feed intake was found, so the supplement below has no verified feeding rate. Start with a small amount (for example 0.5 kg a day for an adult in dry season, an example only), raise it over two weeks, watch dung, appetite and weight, and ask your livestock officer for the rate that works.

Recipe 20: Beef cattle dry-season supplement

Beef cattle dry-season supplement. No premix: use a free-choice mineral block (copper-free for sheep).

Totals worked out from. Guide figures from.

Molasses: use 10 to 20% of the ration dry matter at most; over 20% lowers performance in lactating cows. Sugary or starchy supplements must come in slowly.

Horses

Few horses are kept in Ghana (polo, riding, racing) and no Ghana horse feeding source was found. The safe rules come from international guides.

• Roughage first. A horse should eat at least 1.5 to 2% of body weight as forage dry matter; too little roughage causes colic and ulcers. For a 500 kg horse that is 7.5 to 10 kg of dry matter, about 8.4 to 11 kg of Guinea grass hay as fed (derived).
• Little grain, split meals. A concentrate meal should be under 0.5% of body weight, about 2.5 kg for 500 kg, and over 0.75% in a day must be split into two or more meals. Change any feed slowly, over weeks.
• Daily needs, 500 kg horse at maintenance: about 630 g of crude protein, 20 g of calcium and 14 g of phosphorus. Keep calcium to phosphorus about 1.5:1 and never below 1:1.
• Water about 21 to 29 litres a day for a 500 kg horse, more for a lactating mare.
• Salt 1.6 to 1.8 g per kg of feed dry matter.

Example ration (500 kg horse, light work). 9 kg Guinea grass hay as fed, 0.5 kg wheat bran, 20 g limestone, 15 g salt. Calculation: Guinea grass hay (8.2% protein, calcium 0.41%, phosphorus 0.27%) gives 738 g of protein, 36.9 g of calcium and 24.3 g of phosphorus; 0.5 kg bran adds 0.6 g of calcium and 4.9 g of phosphorus; 20 g of limestone adds 7.2 g of calcium, so the total is about 44.7 g of calcium and 29.2 g of phosphorus, a ratio of about 1.5 to 1 (derived from Feedipedia Guinea grass and Feedipedia Wheat bran). Two kilograms of bran would push the ratio below 1 to 1, which is wrong. Energy in Ghana hay was not found, so judge by condition and a weight tape, and ask a vet.

Competency standard

Range. One 50 kg bag mixed by hand; one store. Evidence. Weighing record; mixed bag; store check; oral questions.

Step 1: weigh, don't guess

Scoops and buckets are quick, but a scoop of soybean meal and a scoop of maize weigh different amounts. So we calibrate: weigh a level scoop of each ingredient once, write it down, and use the table to turn kilograms into scoops.

1. Choose one scoop (a clean tin or a cup on a handle) for each bulky ingredient.
2. Fill it level (scrape the top with a ruler or hand), tip it on a platform scale, and weigh. Do this three times and take the average.
3. Write the weight on the scoop with a marker or on a tag.
4. Number of scoops per bag = kg needed per bag ÷ kg in one scoop.
5. Weigh small items (premix, methionine, lysine, salt, DCP) on a kitchen scale; do not scoop them. A tiny error here is a big error in nutrients.

The table below is a worked example for Layer feed 1; the scoop weights are made up for the example, so weigh your own.

Rounding. Round scoops to the nearest half scoop and weigh the last bit. Always check the final bag weighs 50 kg.

Step 2: hand mixing

On a clean concrete floor or tarpaulin, away from wind and wet. Clean the area, wash the shovels.

1. Weigh and lay out every ingredient. Tick each one off the recipe.
2. Make a premix first. Put the small items (premix, methionine, lysine, salt, DCP) in a bucket with about 2 to 3 kg of the maize from the recipe and mix them well. This spreads the tiny amounts.
3. Spread the maize in a layer, add the soybean meal, bran and fish meal on top, then the limestone or shell.
4. Pour the small-items mix across the pile.
5. Turn the pile over with shovels, from the outside to the centre, again and again, until the colour and texture look the same all through. Then turn it a few more times. (A trainer or a lab can test evenness; that is a Level 2 topic.)
6. Bag it, label it and note the batch.

Coarse limestone or shell for layers goes in last and is mixed gently so it does not sink to the bottom.

Particle size. Chicks and pullets eat coarse, crumbly mash better than fine dust; Lohmann gives sieve targets and says no particle over 3 mm in starter, 5 mm in other feeds. If you grind, grind coarse. Wheat bran and rice bran do not need grinding.

Changing feeds. Change gradually over about a week: day 1 to 2 three quarters old feed and one quarter new; day 3 to 4 half and half; day 5 to 6 a quarter old; then all new. Do the change over weeks for horses. Piglets must not be changed suddenly at weaning. (The day-by-day split is a teaching suggestion, not from a source.)

Step 3: store feed safely

• Dry, cool, off the floor. Use pallets, keep feed off walls, keep roof leaks and rain out. Moisture is what makes mould and aflatoxin.
• Sort and dry grain before storing. In a Ghana test in Brong-Ahafo, maize stored for 6 months in ordinary polypropylene sacks rose to 82.9 ppb aflatoxin, but only 48.9 ppb in hermetic (airtight) bags. Hermetic bags are a good investment. A "safe" grain moisture figure was not verified for this module; ask your extension officer.
• Use fast-spoiling ingredients fast. Rice bran goes rancid within hours of milling; the free fatty acids rise about 1% an hour in parboiled rice bran. Fish meal fat oxidises, and copra should not be used after long storage.
• Keep premix as the supplier says, observe the use-by date, and use it up; an antioxidant helps premix last.
• Mixed feed: mix only what the animals will eat in 1 to 2 weeks in the heat; feed goes stale.
• Keep pests out: wild birds, rats and mice. Keep cats, not poisons, near feed.
• Label every bag with animal, stage, date and "NO COPPER" or "COPPER" where it matters.
• Separate stores (or separate shelves with signs) for sheep feed, poultry/pig feed, cattle feed and horse feed.

Step 4: water and hygiene

• Animals drink more water than feed. Check troughs and nipples daily.
• Layer water goal: about 20 °C, bacteria under 1,000 per ml, no faecal coliforms; pH 5 to 7. Pig drinking water should be under 1,000 ppm dissolved solids. Cattle: nitrate-N under 10 mg per litre.
• Wash drinkers daily. Hens in heat need cool water.
• Clean the mixing place between feeds, especially after poultry or pig feed with premix before mixing sheep or horse feed, and after any medicated feed.
• Wear gloves and a dust mask; wash hands after.

Step 5: the safety table

Aflatoxin limits. There is no Ghana limit for feed in the sources found. Ghana launched a National Policy for Aflatoxin Control in Food and Feed on 12 October 2022. In the USA, guidance levels are 20 ppb for young animals and dairy cows, 100 ppb for breeding cattle, breeding pigs and laying hens, 200 ppb for finishing pigs over 100 lb and 300 ppb for finishing beef cattle. They are a guide, not Ghana law. When in doubt, throw it out.

Ruminant feed rule. US rules ban most mammal protein in ruminant feed and exempt blood, gelatin, milk, poultry and fish products; Australia bans fish, blood and poultry meals too. Ghana's rule was not found. This module says no fish, blood or meat and bone meal for ruminants.

Competency standard

Range. One flock or herd, one week of records. Evidence. Record sheet; calculations; oral questions.

What to record every day

Lohmann advises daily checks of health, temperature, ventilation, feed and water use, lighting and deaths, and noting droppings and the general look of the flock. Dead animals must be disposed of hygienically.

Three sums

1. Mortality % = deaths ÷ number at the start × 100. For layers to 17 weeks, Hy-Line's table allows about 2.55% total. A good weaner pig herd loses 2.5% at "good" and 0.5% at "best". Field surveys in Nigeria found pre-weaning pig deaths of 14 to 17%.
2. Hen-day laying % = eggs laid that day ÷ hens alive that day × 100. A good brown layer is at about 93% in week 45.
3. Feed conversion ratio (FCR) = kg of feed used ÷ kg of weight gained (or kg of eggs). Cobb 500 broilers need 1.4 to 1.6 kg of feed per kg at 35 to 42 days. Hy-Line reports 1.81 to 1.94 kg of feed per kg of eggs.

Spotting trouble early

Cutting mortality: the feeding steps

• Chicks: water first, small crumbly starter, fresh feed, even warmth, rearing light programme.
• Layers: feed by body weight; keep intake up in heat; keep water clean; never let feed run out.
• Broilers: correct starter, small fine feed; the first week's weight is the best sign; watch the water; clean feed; withdrawal feed only per vet.
• Piglets: colostrum in 24 hours; creep feed from 7 days; sow eats well; clean water.
• Lambs: well-fed ewe in the last 6 weeks; creep feed from 7 days; fed dam and lamb; copper-free minerals.
• Calves: colostrum in the first hours; clean milk; water from day 1; starter early; wean on intake, not on age only.
• Horses: roughage first; clean feed; no cattle or poultry feed; change slowly.
• Everyone: biosecurity (own boots, clean clothes, keep wild birds and rodents out).

Antibiotics and ionophores are sometimes added to feed on veterinary advice, but doses and withdrawal periods are for a vet.

Competency standard

Range. The trainee's own plan. Evidence. Costing sheet; one-page plan.

What feed costs, and what the market pays

• Feed is the biggest cost: about 70% of the cost of producing poultry.
• Reports in 2026 put a crate of eggs at about GH¢50 to 55 in Koforidua and an average of GH¢51.50 in Accra markets.
• Frozen chicken is reported to be about 95% of the chicken market, and a poultry master plan consultation in February 2026 aimed at multiplying local output ten times.
• Ready-mixed poultry feed was advertised at about GH¢300 to 320 a bag on Jiji (bag size not stated), and one farming guide gave GH¢380 to 420 for a 50 kg broiler bag (low-authority source).

Choose a location

Business ideas and ingenuity

Equipment on Jiji in October 2026 included hammer mills at about GH¢4,000 to 29,000 (typically 7,000 to 18,500), feed mixers at about GH¢8,500 to 48,000, pellet machines at GH¢8,500 to 32,000, and nipple drinkers at GH¢3 to 8 each. A hammer mill is not needed at Level 1; hand mixing is.

Rules you must check

• Feed law: Ghana's FDA regulates food, drugs and veterinary medicines under the Public Health Act 2012 (Act 851), but animal feed is not in its listed products; a review to bring animal feed into the food law began in 2015 and was still going in 2024. Whether feed mills or premixes must be registered with the Veterinary Services Directorate or another body was not found; ask the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) Animal Production Directorate before you start.
• Imports: MoFA's Animal Production Directorate gives e-permits for imported feed and feed ingredients.
• Vitamin or mineral supplements for animals sold as tablets, capsules, sachets or powders need FDA registration; whether premixes fall under this was not verified.
• Standards: the Ghana Standards Authority has a poultry feed standard, but its number was not found.
• Programmes: the Rearing for Food and Jobs programme (2017) aimed to cut chicken imports by 70% by 2025, but the result was not verified. Bird flu has led to movement bans.
• Large feed makers: De Heus (Koudijs) built a compound feed factory at Tema with a planned 90,000 tonnes a year. Compete on service, trust and local advice, not on price alone.

Market yourself

• A clean shop with a price list on the wall and a sign: "We weigh. We label. Copper-free sheep minerals sold here."
• WhatsApp photos of your clean store, pallets and labelled bags: clean sells.
• A free feeding chart for each animal.
• Give a small sample bag to a few farmers and ask for their egg, weight or milk numbers.
• Never sell unlabelled feed, never make health claims you cannot prove, and never sell feed that is old or damp.

Accessibility

Ghana's Persons with Disability Act, 2006 (Act 715) covers access and work. The government announced that the District Assembly Common Fund share for persons with disabilities would rise from 3% to 5% from 2026, and Sekondi-Takoradi gave equipment and cash to 60 persons with disabilities from the 3% share in November 2025. Persons with disabilities have been trained in food production for sale, including a Savannah Region group with people with physical disabilities that now sells branded yoghurt.

Practical changes in a feed business (advice):

1. Name the six nutrient groups.
2. Why must you change layer feed by body weight and not only by age?
3. Why do hens need coarse limestone as part of their feed?
4. Why is a withdrawal feed used for broilers?
5. Why must sheep never get pig or poultry feed?
6. Which feed ingredient groups must never be fed to cattle, sheep or goats?
7. What drug in some cattle and poultry feeds kills horses?
8. What do you do first when a horse eats less hay and shows colic?
9. How do you calibrate a scoop?
10. What three things must be imported or bought as additives, and why?
11. How do you work out mortality percent?
12. Name two accessibility changes for a feed shop.

Best next reads: the Hy-Line and Lohmann management guides for layers; the Ross and Cobb broiler guides; the Merck Veterinary Manual nutrition pages; Feedipedia for ingredient data; and the Hub's Raising Layers to Point of Lay, Money Skills and Food Processing manuals.

What this module does not cover: least-cost formulation, Pearson squares, premix design, mixers and grinders, laboratory tests, breeder recipes, urea-molasses blocks, pelleting, automatic feeders and Ghana feed law in detail (see Levels 2 and 3).

Every source used in this manual is listed, with links, in the Teacher Copy.