A byproduct of animal processing is blood meal. It is often used as top dressing for animals, birds, and also as fertilizer. Application of the product has its own characteristics. Flour helps reduce soil acidity, reduce feed costs and more.
Benefits for animals
Blood meal is rich in healthy protein and low in fat and ash. The product contains up to 75% of easily digestible protein, the level of fat is close to zero. The digestibility of flour depends on the method of drying the raw materials. After exposure to a temperature of about 70 degrees, the flour is better absorbed by the animal body. After low-temperature drying, the finished product contains about 80% protein.
It is easy to determine how the product was made by dissolving it in water. Blood flour produced at low temperatures is almost completely soluble in water. The one that was produced at high drying temperatures does not dissolve well in water.
The use of blood flour in animal husbandry allows you to:
- Reduce feed consumption. When compiling a diet, a calculation is made of the protein content in the feed. When flour is added, the amount of other feed and additives that supply the animal with raw protein is reduced.
- Improve the digestibility of incoming feed.
- Provide the body of animals and birds with all minerals, amino acids, nutrients, including protein.
The use of flour in livestock
Blood flour is widely used in animal husbandry. It is added to poultry, rabbits, pigs, calves, cows. The high amino acid content made it possible to replace bone meal and other high-protein feeds used for fattening with a blood product.
To verify the benefits of flour, studies have been conducted. Scientists compared the results of the fattening of two groups of pigs. In the first group, bone meal was added , and in the second, blood meal . As a result, pigs on blood feed grew 7% faster than on the other.
In livestock, the use of blood flour depends on its quality. This product is considered the best source of protein. However, there is little cystine and methionine in it, so flour is used in conjunction with other additives.
When compiling feed, add up to 60 grams of flour per kilogram of feed. The amount of product may be increased. The final amount of dry matter added to the diet depends on who the feed is for. Poultry and pigs should be fed 25% protein. When cooking food, blood meal is added as much as necessary to bring the protein index to normal.
Blood feed nutrition
Dry feed is much more nutritious than analogues of other forms. This can be seen from the table below.
Indicator | Fresh blood | Dry blood (flour) | Isolated blood cells (hemoglobin) |
Dry matter per gram per kilogram | 210 | 900 | 910 |
Protein g / kg | 940 | 910 | 17 |
Fat, g / kg CB | 5 | 5 | 2 |
Ash, g / kg CB | fifty | 55 | 3 |
Exchange energy, pigs, MJ / kg | 16 | 16 | 19 |
Lysine, g / kg | 83 | 78 | 90 |
Methionine and cystine, g / kg | 27 | 24 | thirteen |
Digestibility (%) | 90 | 60 to 99 (depending on type of drying) | 90 |
Drying methods
In the production of flour, various drying methods are used. They were conditionally divided into two groups:
- Low temperature drying. Product production takes place at a temperature of 55 to 85 degrees.
- High temperature drying. When drying, the temperature is kept from 86 to 100 degrees.
Each batch of the finished product must be tested. For this, a sample is taken from each bag. As a result of the samples, the composition of the product and the moisture level are evaluated. The optimum moisture content is up to 10%. The lowest temperature during drying allows you to get a better product.
Garden application
Gardeners and gardeners have found application of blood meal in the garden. This product is cheaper than fertilizers, but better in quality.
Dry matter helps increase the level of nitrogen in the soil. Flour is well soluble in water, so liquid fertilizer can be prepared from it: 1 tablespoon of the substance is diluted in 10 liters of water.
In addition to making flour as a nitrogen fertilizer, it is also used in the following cases:
- If necessary, reduce soil acidity. To find out what level of acidity in the area, you need to take a sample and take it to the laboratory. If it turns out that the pH level is too high, then adding dry flour can normalize the acidity.
- When yellowness appears on the leaves of plants, it is necessary to add flour as soon as possible. It contains enough nitrogen to return beautiful green leaves to plants. Fertilizer is applied once a month.
- Blood meal helps fight pests.
Fertilizer nourishes the plant for six weeks, after which another feeding is carried out. When adding dry matter to the soil, as well as when using liquid fertilizers, it is necessary to monitor the amount. An overdose of flour can burn plants.
In conclusion, it is worth noting that blood flour in Russia is still not very popular in comparison with European countries. Foreign livestock farmers practically do not use bone meal, replacing it with blood meal.