Storage of commercial poultry

feeds to maintain quality

Dr. Hafeez Ur Rehman Ali
Lecturer
Faculty of Veterinary and Animal Sciences
The Muhammad Nawaz Shareef University of Agriculture
• Mixed feeds which have undergone a heat treatment during
production, such as steam pelleting, store better than other mixtures
because many of the damaging factors will have been destroyed.
Keep in sealed, preferably plastic, containers, in a cool dark place.

• It is hard to estimate the shelf life of poultry feed in storage

facilities, even under the best of conditions.
• The longevity will depend on
1. The conditions in the storage
2. The composition of the poultry feed.
3. The local climate will also play a key role in determining the life-span of
your poultry feed. This is especially so when it comes to the
• Temperature
• Relative humidity of the local area and the housing.
Even with an excellent food storage system, food should only be stored for
a short duration of time.
The ideal timeframe should be two months after the date of manufacture.
By reducing the storage time, you can ensure a faster turnover thereby
cutting down on the inventory costs while giving your flock fresh and high
quality poultry feed.
• When storing the poultry feed, you should be cautious of the
exposure to the sunshine. Radiation from the sun can degrade the
quality of the feed through the effect of the greenhouse gases.
• Overheating may also negatively impact the nutritional content of
the food leading to the breaking down and degradation of the
proteins or the fats being rancid.
Recommendation
• Maintain feed stock which should be consumed with in 7 days.
• Most of poultry companies recommend storage of feed only for 3
days in their farms on commercial purpose.
• You must use wide excellent ventilated room for feed storage, exhaust
fan is essential according to our weather.
• Avoid direct sun exposure to feed. Use well insulated room for
storage, for this reason cover all walls and roof with thermopile
material. Another advantage of insulation is that they can help reduce
or entirely prevent condensation at night when the temperatures fall.
Condensation creates humid conditions and is likely to lead to the
growth of mold on top of the layers of poultry feed.
• Always use cool and dark area for storage.
• Apply polythene sheets, spread lime over it and now place feed bags
on it, lime absorb if any moisture over there.
• Always check feed bags when you receive feed from manufacturer in
bad weather especially.
• Check roof and walls for leakage during rainy season.