The use of vacuum coating is mostly limited to production of high fat containing extruded aqua and pet diets. The physical characteristics of extrudates are favourable for vacuum coating due to their high porosity and durability. However, with pelleted feed for broilers, there are potentially several opportunities, but there are also challenges; these are explored here. The opportunities identified were inclusion of high level of oils, protected delivery of feed additives (e.g., enzymes, probiotics, vaccines, etc.), improved and safe use of offensive feed additives and improvement of shelf-life of feed and additives. Challenges include the relatively high density of pellets (low porosity) which limits liquid infusion, increased processing cost and decreased feed throughput. However, feed ingredients selection and alternating processing variables (temperature, moisture, die specifications etc.) were deemed to overcome the challenges of low porosity. Three experiments were conducted to evaluate the use of vacuum coating in pelleted feed. In the first experiment, the effect of particle size on post-pellet oil absorption (OA), porosity, pellet durability index (PDI) and bulk density were investigated. The three particle sizes for three grains (wheat, barley and corn) were pelleted using a 4.7 mm die to get whole grain (WP), coarse (CP), and fine (FP) grind pellets. The pellets were coated with 15% canola oil without (VC-) and with (VC+; 0.3 bar) vacuum coating. The grain type was found to have a significant effect on the particle size when ground through either fine (3.2 mm) or coarse (6.4 mm) screen. With coarse grinding, the mean particle size was 1896, 1290 and 1057 µm, respectively for barley, wheat and corn; with fine grinding, the mean particle size was 1153, 767 and 732 µm, respectively. Porosity of CP from wheat and corn was significantly (P<0.01) higher than WP and FP. For barley, there was no difference in porosity of CP and FP but both were significantly higher than WP. For wheat, OA of CP was highest (P<0.01), but no significant difference was found between FP and WP. However, for barley, higher OA was found in FP followed by CP and WP. In corn, OA of CP was higher than for FP or WP. Vacuum coating (VC+) improved (P<0.01) OA of all pellets compared to VC-. Porosity was positively correlated with OA and negatively correlated to PDI and bulk density. Overall, the first experiment suggested that alteration of particle size and grain type could be the options for improving the oil absorption by vacuum coating. A second experiment was conducted to observe the effect of enzyme addition method (EAM; E-, without enzyme; PreE+, Pre-pellet addition of enzyme; PosE+, post-pellet addition of enzyme), conditioning temperature (CT; 65 or 95°C) and coating method (CM; VC- or VC+) on broiler performance when fed wheat-rye-based diets. Enzyme addition (pre or post-pellet addition in comparison to without enzyme) significantly improved (P<0.01) the body weight at 21 and 35d. Higher CT (95°C) improved feed conversion ratio (FCR) in both starter (P<0.01) and grow/finish phase (P=0.04) and PDI of both starter and grow/finish pellets (P<0.01) when compared to low CT (65°C). Vacuum coating did not have any effect on the diet extract viscosity, animal performance or digesta viscosity in either of the phases. However, with post-pellet vacuum coating, there was high retention of xylanase activity after processing. Vacuum coating significantly (P<0.05) reduced the relative length of small intestine of broilers at 21d but not at 35d. In the third experiment, broiler grow/finish diets were stored in an incubator (37°C) to see if vacuum coating can improve the shelf-life of feed. The results showed post-pellet vacuum-coated pellets retained higher enzyme activity after 15 days of storage. Although no effect of vacuum coating on animal performance was observed, vacuum coating was able to protect the enzyme during processing and storage. Further work needs to be done to translate these benefits to improve animal performance, which might be achieved using various vacuum coating and processing conditions, and bioactives.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:ecommons.usask.ca:10388/ETD-2015-07-2099 |
| Date | 2015 July 1900 |
| Contributors | Scott, Thomas A. |
| Source Sets | University of Saskatchewan Library |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, thesis |
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