Short communicationUNEForm: a powerful feed formulation spreadsheet suitable for teaching or on-farm formulation
Introduction
The application of computers in feed formulation has been a boon to nutritionists. In teaching diet formulation the usual sequence of events includes an introduction to stochastic methods (successive ‘guesses’ to approach the desired result), Pearson squares and linear programming. Simple linear programs have been with us for many years, and most of the commercial feed-formulation software has such an engine at its heart. For teaching purposes such software has two drawbacks: cost, and the calculations are something of a ‘black box’ with only the inputs and the final results visible.
Previously developed software for teaching purposes includes UFFDA (Pesti and Miller, 1992), a purpose-designed program that was developed into a commercial product. Other Excel© templates have been developed (for example, LINEAR.xls and RANDB.xls, University of Georgia, available from their web-site).
The capability and flexibility of modern spreadsheet programs induced us to develop a rudimentary database for use in stochastic formulation exercises. More recently, the model has been extended to make use of the linear programming capability of the ‘solver’ function in Excel©. The workbook as presented here has been a useful tool in our undergraduate teaching program. The inclusion of a graphical representation of the formulated versus desired nutrient supply has given users a greater appreciation of the degree to which any diet formulation deviates from the desired result.
Section snippets
Description
The Excel© workbook consists of one descriptive and four functional worksheets designated ‘instructions’, ‘nutrients’, ‘ingredients’, ‘UNEForm’ and ‘output’. These worksheets are described in more detail below.
Discussion
The development of this spreadsheet has been a sporadic process over 3 years. Our goal has been to develop a robust and functional feed formulation facility that would allow the production of practical diets while allowing easy inspection of all parts of the process. It was also desirable to make the program as logical and intuitive to use as possible.
In our teaching of the principles of least-cost diet formulation to undergraduate students, we have a preliminary period of instruction in
Software
Excel© version 6.0 or later is required to run this spreadsheet. Copies of the UNEForm Spreadsheet are available from the authors or from the following web page: http://ansc.une.edu.au/poultry/. Excel© is a copyright product of Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052, USA.
References (4)
- et al.
The use of an electronic spreadsheet to solve linear and nonlinear stochastic feed formulation problems
J. Appl. Poult. Res.
(1999) - Evans, M., 1985. Nutrient composition of feedstuffs for pigs and poultry. Queensland Department of Primary Industries...
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2017, Trends in Food Science and TechnologyCitation Excerpt :Most of type (b) software is based on spreadsheet-linear programming, as spreadsheets are indeed fast and flexible research tools. They have been used for a while as tools and decision aids for: animal feed or ration formulation, dietetic formula calculating and recipes modulating, and ingredients calculation for standardization of particular foods (Forsyth, 1995; Goolsby & Staten, 2009; Silva, Minim, Silva, Carvalho, & Minim, 2013; Thomson & Nolan, 2001; VandeHaar & Black, 1991). Spreadsheets are practical tools for assessment of economic value of a new product formulation able to compare it to the cost of old recipes.
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2003, Acta TropicaCitation Excerpt :Thus, an unbalanced diet of, e.g. maize or sorghum, which are common feeds on small farms, will only provide approximately 30% of the pigs requirements of lysine and methionine, which are normally considered as the most limiting amino-acids in pig feeds (Fig. 1). Simulations with data available for green feeds and material of animal origin show that a 20% ‘supplement’ from the fields may increase the amino-acid provision to about 80% of the optimum (calculations performed in UNEForm developed by Thomson and Nolan, 2001). If pigs are kept enclosed this supplement has to be fed to the pig which involves purchase and labour costs.