Feeding blocks are very important in an animal’s diet as these contain minerals for livestock de-worming and mineral supplementation.
The technique is the same as that of making concrete blocks. Ingredients should be thoroughly mixed, preferably using a motorised concrete mixer or a similar equipment. The procedure of making 20 blocks each weighing 5 kg is as follows:
Step 1
Pour 5 litres of water in a concrete mixer and add 10 kg of urea in the running concrete mixer. Run the mixer until all the urea is dissolved.
Step 2
Add 1 litre of the anthelmintic (a 10% formulation of the appropriate drug e.g. Zerofen, Panacur).
Step 3
Weigh out 12 kg of cement and slowly mix in 3 litres of water until a homogeneous paste is attained. Pour this into the running mixer and add 3 kg of common salt and 5 kg of mineral premix.
Step 4
Measure out 25 kg of molasses and put in the running
mixer. Use 2 litres of hot water to rinse the cement and
molasses containers and add this to the mixer.
Step 5
Measure out 35 kg maize germ or any other bulking agent and put this in the concrete mixer. Let the mixer run until the thick paste is homogeneous.
The resulting paste is ready for moulding into any preferred shapes and sizes.
Step 6
Oil the inside of the moulding bowls or other suitable mould for ease of removal of the blocks after setting.
Any edible salad oil can be used for this purpose. Pour the paste into 20 moulds of 5 kg each. The blocks should be left in the sun for about two hours.
After this, they should be removed from the moulds and left to dry indoors for 1-2 weeks depending on the weather