How to Start Animal Feed Production Business
Do you need the surefire steps to start an animal feed business? Are you a veteran Agroprenuer and want to diversify into the animal feed production business? If you are here to learn more about starting an animal feed production business, make sure you read this article to the end as its promises to expose you to all the nooks and crannies of the animal feed production business.
Apparently, one of the most lucrative and reliable business sectors that investors and business owners have been making a huge turn of profit upon investing in the Agricultural sector. This sector is, without doubt, the mother of all other sectors this is so because it housed so many business niches that are unique and productive in their own league.
Essentially, numerous business ideas and business guides have been published on this site all in the name of helping our dear visitors live their dream life and in a bid to put the financial crunch at bay. While people are not dulling themselves as business opportunities keep springing up on this website on daily basis, it is in our humble few that this guide on how to start an animal feed production business will be much appreciated, too!
Informatively, it is no longer a piece of news that that the competent, as well as the commercial livestock farmers around the world, are keeping it real by living a royal life – with no regards to either big or small scale livestock farmer – they are all living an enviable lifestyle. Why don’t you join their league by following the simple and easy way to be discussed below. But before then have you consider:
How Lucrative is Animal Feed Production Business?
Well, this question is straightforward, it doesn’t require many answers. It is obvious that the animal feed model is, without doubt, one of the leading agro-businesses with huge and lots of potential for a high-profit margin. So you should rather inquire about the strategies involved in picking the best business opportunities out of the numerous ones available in the animal feed niche.
In this case, the key factor in such regard is the available capital. So if you have the required capital for starting an animal feed production business, the business is lucrative and worth investing in.
Premise on the above discussed you will agree with me that among all the available agro-businesses in the animal feed niche, livestock feed has the most intensive capital. Therefore, livestock feed production is what this article will basically base on.
Read Also: Top 10 Profitable Agriculture Business Ideas
What is a Livestock Feed?
Livestock feed could be defined in various ways but it can simply be defined as the processing of raw agricultural products such as hay, forage, wheat, and the host of others into consumable bird feed, cattle feed, rabbit feed, a fish meal just to mention but a few.
So, therefore, kick-starting a livestock feed production business of your own whether on a large or small scale will greatly depend on your starting budget. Nevertheless, the livestock feed production process flow still remains the same.
Do You Have a Business License?
Before delving into production proper, it is important to ask if you have a business permit license. If you don’t have one, then you will need to obtain a certificate of animal feed production from the government agency responsible for such a task in your country.
For example, in Nigeria, the people saddled with such responsibility are called the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC). Check out how to easily Register Your Product With NAFDAC.
However, if you have all the needed requirements for the business registration and you are granted the working permit, then proceed to the next cause of action in your sojourn to starting an animal feed production business.
How to Start Animal Feed Production Business
In the course of our discussion, I’ll introduce you to some top-notch models on how to start an animal feed production business that is active in this present day. Without further delay, let’s explore the piece together.
1. Get a Place or Outlet
Though this is maybe a preliminary stage as to the main business, yet, location is a major factor in setting out a new venture and it must not be taken with levity hand.
Although it’s practically impossible for you to carry out the animal feed production in your apartment, you will need to buy or rent out a facility built in the shape of a warehouse in other to get the production business up and running.
While looking for a convenient and comfortable location may be as simple as that, wherever you decide to use for the business, let the place security and exposure be your major priority.
2. Get the Needed Labor Force
While this may also be one of the preliminary stages of animal feed production proper, it is a must for you to have the needed labor force on the ground before the grand opening.
Depending on your planned and estimated budget, you can employ full-time staff who will be helping out in the animal feed production, filling them into bags, weighing, distributing, etc and you can at the same time engage the services of freelancers whom you will be paying wages as opposed to the monthly salary.
3. Get Your Formula
Now, we are into the animal feed production business proper. While you must have defined the animal feed niche you will be producing, with such the right knowledge, you need to be versed in the feed nutritional needs. That is to say, the nutritional combination for catfish feeds is distinct from chicken feeds and that of other livestock feeds.
So if you are new in this sector, you can call on an animal nutritionist for help and guidance on how to mix the right formula. As a matter of fact, getting the correct and perfect formula plus some other ratio involved in the feed productions is what often gives livestock feed producers an advantage over others.
For instance, the weight of a catfish is usually determined by the nature of feed meal it consumes, so if a farmer makes many gains from a particular set of fish he reared, he’s likely not going to patronize any other feed production because of the right and perfect ingredients the previous one has got.
However, if your budget didn’t cover the service of a nutritionist, you can surf the net on how to dilute the right and perfect formula in animal feed production. Better still, you can visit veteran feed meals producers to enlighten you more on it.
4. Ingredients
Since it is impossible for you to produce any unit of animal feed without the needed ingredients, it is therefore very important for you to get the following ingredients for your animal feed production:
- Maize
- Cassava grits
- Corn
- Wheat offal
- Soybean meal
- Noodle wastes
- Oyster shell
- Fish meals
- Palm kernel cake
- Common salt
- Bone meals
- Minerals etc.
Having got all the above-listed ingredients ready, the next thing is to produce the first batch of the animal feed.
5. Equipment
Now that you have all the necessary ingredients for producing animal feed, it is trite that these ingredients can only metamorphose into your desired livestock feed with the help of the necessary equipment. This equipment is quite different from the Common Farm Tools, see below:
- Grinders
- Mixer
- Pellets
- wet and dry
- Mixers Wet/dry
- Cooker
- Crumblier
- freezer
- Elevators
- Sifter
- Conveyors
- Steam boiler
- Sealers and Bag sewers
- Packaging bag
- Weighing Scale and others.
With the help of all the above-listed tools, you stand the chance of producing 100% clean and efficient animal feed. However, if you can’t afford to get them all at once, most of the equipment has custom-made that can perform the same function as a new one would so go for it so as to get your business started.
In addition, if you are starting this animal feed production business on a low capital investment budget, you can meet with those that are in the production business for years to borrow a few of their equipment to complement yours in other to produce your first batch.
Better still, if they can’t release any to you you can leverage with them just to create awareness to your target audience and build your customer base. Through this, the probability is very high that you are going to make more money that is capable of getting you your own needed equipment for full-time animal feed production.
6. Packaging
It is pertinent you note that all livestock farmers either big, medium or small scale have one thing in common and that is supplying their potential customers with big and healthy animals capable of raking home huge turn of profits.
So if you want your animal feed product to be highly celebrated by them, you will have to be producing an efficient and nutritional-balance animal feed that would help them in achieving their objective. This means, their own good is your own fortune!
So, therefore, packaging will come in to play a role when your animal feed is ready and mind you, this is an important stage that you need to be very careful in dealing with. This packaging of a thing is so important because the size of your animal feed is capable of doing two things to your business brand.
- If the animal feed is well packaged and the size is okay, too, both your seasonal and potential customers will hold on to your brand.
- But if your animal feed is not well packaged and the size is too small compared to your competitors’, it will definitely chase your customers away.
In a bid to avoid this brouhaha, package your livestock feed in different sizes and provide your prospective customers the opportunity to choose the one that is okay with them – including the price.
7. Marketing
Since it is an established fact that you can consume your animal feed product yourself, you need your target audience to come forward and cart them away on the agreed price, then you need to market out the products to all the nook and crannies where you know that your target audience is.
Essentially, this aspect of the animal feed production business is somehow tasking and many aspiring livestock feed producers don’t play with it. Marketing your products is very serious because the only way you can make money through this business is by having your animal feed products sold repeatedly and this can’t be achieved without adequate marketing.
So, make sure you market your feed products thoroughly if you want to get to the promised land! Whenever you are going out to market your products, go with enough samples as an element of believability and to exhibit the efficacy of your products. Also, always leave your company card or contact them in case they need to contact you.
8. Transportation System
Although the issue of logistics can be settled after you have established yourself as one of the go-to guys in the animal feed production industry. But if you have enough investment capital to run this business from the inception i.e if you are not on a low budget, it is very crucial you get a transportation system of your own.
This is so because without any means of transportation – either a van or truck – that belongs to your company, you will definitely spend more than enough money through vehicle renting in the course of making deliveries. To avoid all these unnecessary spendings, it is ideal if you can get one for the company coupled with a team of guys who will be on the delivery service list – mounting the back of the truck.
Conclusion
In the long run, it can be deduced from the foregoing that starting the animal feed production business is never a difficult task so far you have the needed capital investment coupled with the knowledge of the above discussed. The business is very sweet, reliable, and comes with lots of profit.
Thanks to the livestock farmers who are doing great around the world and as such, giving rise to business investors who are rushing the animal feed production business.
