Animal Feed Production and Quality in Nepal

The present study is an attempt to assess the situation of feed industries and the quality of feed in Nepal. Feed production is a major component of poultry industry, because near about 80% of total cost require for production goes to feed. There are altogether 149 feed industries of different size in different location in operation. About 45% of them are of small unit producing less than 5 tones/day. About 35% are of medium size producing 6-10 tones/day, and rest 20% is of large size producing more than 10 tones/day. The feed production cost was higher than its neighboring country China and India by about 33% and 23%, respectively. Likewise, the feed conversion ratio (FCR) was also high being 2.3 for broiler compared to China and India being 1.8 and 2.0, respectively. The high production cost and poor performance was mainly due to low quality raw materials, unavailability of raw materials, unscientific formulation, and poor management in the poultry farm and smaller size of production unit. The raw materials mostly used to produce mash were maize, soybeans, sesame cake, sunflower cake, fishmeal, rice police, de-oiled rice cake, bone meal and some synthetic amino acids