Animal Feed
Buy and sell animal feed in Guatemala.
Molasses from the cane mills of the south coast, grain sorghum grown in the dry east and sacks of concentrate made for a single species all end up in the same trough sooner or later. They are listed here alongside hay bales, bagged silage and the petrol choppers that turn freshly cut grass into something a cow will eat down to the stem: new from mills and farm suppliers, and as unopened surplus or used machines from farms that have cut back their herds. Whatever the sack or bale, three things decide it: which animal it was made for, how it was stored and whether mould has got in.
Concentrate, forage and what is left over from cane and grain:
most feed falls into one of those three groups, and each does a different job. Concentrate comes in sacks made for one species and one stage: layer feed for hens, starter and finisher for pigs, dairy and beef rations, horse feed, floating pellets for tilapia ponds. Forage is the bulk: hay bales, maize or grass silage sealed in bags, and fresh grass cut daily from a plot of Taiwan or king grass. Then come the cheap energy sources farmers mix in: yellow maize, grain sorghum from the dry corridor in the east, and cane molasses, which dairies use to make coarse forage go down better and to help silage ferment. If you are still working out how many animals the land can carry, start with livestock.
The label on a sack, before it reaches the wrong animal:
a feed made for one species is not a cheaper version of another’s. Layer feed carries the calcium a hen needs for eggshell, too much for a growing pullet. The mistake that cannot be undone is a horse eating cattle concentrate with an ionophore such as monensin in it, which can kill it, so read the label on any surplus sack before it goes near a stable.
The forage chopper and what it chops:
where the cows stay in a pen and grass is cut and carried to them, the chopper matters more than any sack. Give a cow a whole stalk of king grass and she picks at the leaves and tramples the rest; chopped short, the stem goes down too. Petrol engines work anywhere; an electric motor is quieter and cheaper to run where the supply is reliable. Combination machines such as Trapp’s also grind maize or sorghum with a screen fitted, which saves buying a separate mill. A small petrol chopper is around Q6,000 to Q7,000 new, and the engine is a good share of that. A used one is priced on that engine and on its knives: one that starts on the first pull and still has its screens is worth paying for, while one with a tired motor is a frame you will have to re-power.
Mould in a bale, a split silage bag and a drum of sour molasses:
they turn feed into a loss. Pull a handful from the middle of a bale: good hay is green to pale gold and smells sweet, while dust rising in a cloud, grey patches or warmth inside mean it was baled damp. Silage should smell sharply sour, like vinegar; a rancid or rotten smell, or a split bag grey with mould along the top, means air got in. Molasses that foams or smells of alcohol has been watered or left open and is fermenting. With sacked feed and grain, check the manufacture date and ask whether it sat on pallets away from rats or against a damp wall. Clumped or discoloured grain can carry toxins you cannot see: turn it down. On a used chopper, look for chipped knives, rock the shaft for bearing play and make sure the guard is still on. Copied engines wearing a Honda sticker are common, so look at the casting and the serial, not the badge.
A bale broken open in the photos and the chopper running on video:
they sell better than any description. For hay, say which grass it is, when it was cut and whether rain caught it before baling, and show one bale opened up. For silage, give the crop and the date the bags were sealed. For sacked feed, photograph the label so species, lot and date can be read. For a chopper, film it taking a full armful of grass and list the screens and spare knives that go with it. Someone driving out from Chiquimula for a load of hay will want to know whether you will help load it, so say how the bales are tied and roughly what each one weighs.