To be able to have a grasp upon the right order total mixed ration ingredients to go into the mixer, you need to take into account the matter of said ingredients’ physical properties. These include adhesiveness, static electricity, hysteroscopy (water absorption capacity), density, shape, and size. These aspects will affect mixing in a variety of ways.
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Total Mixed Ration Ingredients: What to Handle
Among the many aspects mentioned above, the two things that should receive the most attention would be the moisture and density of the total mixed ration ingredients.
1. Moisture
Dry ingredients that have smaller particle sizes will stick to the ones that are of higher moisture, like molasses or silage. This is why you need to put the dry ingredients into the mixer first before the wetter varieties.
It’s just like baking a cake. The order of cake batter ingredients is dry first, wet later. You put flour in the bowl first not only because it’s of the largest quantity but also because it’s dry. This is followed by other dry components like sugar and yeast. These two are of smaller quantity compared to the flour. Only after dry ingredients have already been put in the bowl can you add wetter ingredients like eggs and oil.
2. Density
Keep this in mind: Heavy stuff falls, lighter stuff floats. The low-density total mixed ration ingredients of long particle length like hay should go in the mixer first. High-density items should be added later as they will sink.
A Very Surprising Finding
It is very hard to get a result of a mixed ratio that is perfectly uniform. This is because the said ratio is composed of ingredients that are of different physical properties. And this is especially true when you use a mixer that comes with a simple auger-based design, like most mixers on the market.
A lot of dairy producers choose to use feeds offered by manufacturers from feed mills or they will come up with their version of premixes to make sure that all total mixed ration ingredients (feed additives, minerals, byproducts, protein mix, and grains) are all mixed thoroughly.
Study About TMR
However, a study was conducted to evaluate the uniformity of manufactured premixes. It was discovered that only 50% of the tested premixes offer a coefficient of variation (CV) deemed acceptable at 10%. Twenty percent of the samples, however, showed a CV of more than 30%.
This is an important point. If manufactured premixes only boast said numbers, it can be argued that on-farm premixes are even lower in their uniformity. Remember, the manufactured premixes use more advanced equipment in feed mills compared to on-farm processing equipment. This leads to an implication that the farmed animals do not consume the total mixed ration ingredients in equal proportion, and heavy minerals, which are expensive, aren’t thoroughly distributed within the ration.
Judging by this, we can conclude that even greater challenges can be expected out of mixing forages with a variety of other ingredients such as feed additives, minerals, byproducts, protein mixes, and grains. The manufacturer will typically offer recommendations for the kind of ingredients the most suitable for their brand of mixer.
Steps of Adding Total Mixed Ration Ingredients
Typical vertical mixers should be able to accommodate unprocessed hay to be added first. However, the time it takes to mix it must always be controlled to prevent their size and length from getting reduced too much. Horizontal mixers may come with knives to help cut unprocessed hay, but the uniformity might be more desirable when the hay has been processed prior.
If somehow the mixer comes without any recommendation of any sort from the manufacturer, take into account the following protocol:
- Always process long hay beforehand.
- If the forages aren’t to be processed into silage, grain or premixes must go in first, followed by the total mixed ration ingredients that are to be used in smaller amounts like vitamins and minerals.
- Add forages that don’t have to be processed first next.
- And then finish it by adding liquids as the last item.
A Much Needed Alternative
Here’s another tip for you: Trust the mixing of your total mixed ration ingredients to Jummos. We offer an array of TMR mixers that come with complete information that you can use to guide all the processes from the beginning to the end.