Minimizing the daily cost of formulating feed supplement in the poultry farm of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Nigeria

Abstract

The cost of formulating feed supplements in Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Nigeria poultry unit was assessed by looking at the cost of two main components that were always used in feed formulation. An optimization model was formulated and was solved using the simplex method, which gave N437.64, as the minimum cost for the formulation of this feed per day. The sensitivity analysis was used to alter the protein content of the feed by increasing its size, which led to the formulation of another model, which was solved by the above mentioned method.
The minimum cost gotten was N720 showing that it will be quite demanding for the university if they should increase the quantity of the protein content of this feed supplement. Therefore the university should not embark on such increase but rather invest their remaining finance in
purchasing other components in other to enrich the quality of this feed since there is already mapped out daily feed outside this supplement which could be protein rich.

Keywords: Poultry farm, feed formulation model, the simplex method, sensitivity analysis