Storing Feed Safely: Beating Weevils and Mould

The bag is where the loss usually starts

Ask a farmer where the feed went and the answer is usually the trough, the rats or the birds scattering it. Often the loss happened earlier. A bag left on bare concrete in a corner, with its neck folded over and a torn seam by the floor, can lose a surprising share of its contents before a single bird eats from it. The insects move in, the rats move in, and the damp rises in from the floor. By the time the feed is opened, its quality is already down.

The store is therefore the first place to look when a flock grows slowly or the feed seems to go faster than the bird numbers suggest. A few simple habits make the difference between a store that keeps feed for weeks and one that spoils it in days. None of them needs expensive equipment. They need a fixed place for the feed, a clean floor, a bit of airflow and someone who looks at the bags every week.

This article covers how to use pallets, handle the bags, rotate the stock, recognise the pests and spoilage, and deal with a bag that has gone bad. If you want to see what poor storage costs across a whole flock, our poultry feed calculator makes it easy to put a number on a few lost bags.

Weevils, moths and the small beetles

Several insects attack stored grain and feed in Ghana, and most of them are small enough to miss unless you look closely. The maize weevil and the rice weevil are the best known. Adults are about three to four millimetres long, dark reddish-brown, with a long snout. They lay eggs inside grain kernels, and the larvae develop inside, so a kernel can look whole from the outside while being hollow inside. Maize and whole grain components of a mash are the most attractive to them.

Flour beetles are a different group. Red flour beetles are small, reddish-brown and run quickly across the surface when the bag is opened. They feed on broken grain and meal, and they thrive in warm, damp corners. Moth larvae spin fine webbing through meal and pellets, which is easy to mistake for dust until you look closer. All of these pests need warmth and a food supply, and a store with dry, cool air and clean bags is a poor place for them to breed.

The insects often arrive with the feed. A bag that was infested at the mill, or one that was stored in a dirty warehouse, can seed a whole store. This is why the first check should happen at the point of delivery, not after the bags have been stacked in the store for a month.

Rats, lizards and the gaps in the store

Rats and mice are a bigger threat to feed than most farmers realise. A rat contaminates far more feed than it eats, through its droppings, urine and hair, and it tears open bags to get at the contents. Gnawed corners and droppings along the wall are the usual signs. A small hole in a bag is an invitation to a whole family of rodents, so repair torn bags at once with a clean patch or by moving the feed to a sealed container.

Geckos and lizards come into stores through open windows and gaps under doors. They are not a major problem for the feed, but they leave droppings and attract insects, and they show that the store is not closed. Fix the gaps in the walls and doors, put fine mesh over vents, and keep the door shut when the store is not in use.

Birds can also get into a store. Pigeons and sparrows will pick through a bag that is left open or torn. Keep the bags covered and the store closed. A store that is secure against rats is usually secure against most other pests as well.

Damp air and the rainy season

Moisture is the quiet enemy of stored feed. Mash and pellets draw water from humid air, and once the moisture in the feed rises above a safe level, mould and insects both start to grow. As a rough guide, feed should stay at around 12 to 13 per cent moisture or lower, and mash spoils faster than pellets because it has more surface area and holds more air. Without a meter, you cannot know the exact figure, but you can judge the feed by how it feels and smells.

In the rainy months, the air in a poorly ventilated store can sit at very high humidity for days. Walls can sweat, and the floor can take up moisture from the ground. A store built on a damp slab, or one where water runs in at the door during a storm, will struggle however well the feed is handled. In these conditions, buy for a shorter period and move stock faster.

Harmattan works in reverse. The air is dry, but it carries fine dust into every corner of the store. Dust settles on bags and in the seams, and it can carry mould spores. Sweep the floor, wipe the bags before opening them and keep the door closed except when you are working inside.

Pallets, spacing and airflow

The pallet is the most useful item in a feed store. Stand every bag on a raised platform, so that the bottom bag sits clear of the floor. Wooden pallets or raised slatted platforms both work well, and they are cheap to build. The aim is to keep the bags dry from below, to allow air to move under the stack, and to make it easy to see the whole stock at a glance.

Leave a gap between the stacks and the walls, enough for a person to walk round and for air to circulate. Sixty centimetres from the wall is a common figure, and the stacks should not touch the roof. A store that has no airflow traps moisture and heat, and bags at the back of a crammed store can go off long before the ones at the front.

Keep the stacks low enough that the bags at the bottom are not crushed by the weight above, and avoid building towers that you cannot reach safely. A stack that tilts or collapses can split several bags at once, which is a bigger loss than the extra space would have saved.

Using the oldest bag first, in practice

Rotation sounds simple, but it fails easily on a busy farm. The new delivery is stacked in front, the old bags are pushed to the back, and within a few weeks the store holds a mix of ages nobody can sort. The fix is a simple habit. Write the date of delivery on every bag with a marker as soon as it arrives. Put new stock at the back of the stack, or in a separate row, and take feed from the front row first.

Keep a short stock book beside the door. Note the date, the feed type, the number of bags and the batch if it is printed on the bag. Cross out the bags as they go to the trough. A stock book tells you how many weeks of feed you have left, and it shows you when a delivery is needed, so you are not forced to buy in a hurry when the price is high or the supplier is out of stock.

Do not mix feed from different bags in the same bin unless you have to. Mixing old and new makes it hard to tell when a bag has started to spoil, and it can hide a problem until the whole bin is affected.

Caring for the bags themselves

A feed bag is a paper or woven plastic container that is good for a few weeks in ordinary use, not for months in a damp store. Handle it with care. Lift it from the bottom and the middle, not by the corners, which tear easily. Drag a bag and the seams open. Stack it on the pallet with the seam facing down or to the side, so that water running down the wall does not seep into the join.

Once a bag has been opened, close it tightly or move the feed into a bin with a lid. Do not leave the neck folded over on the floor. A half-used bag left open in the store is one of the most common sources of mould and insect infestation, because it is open to the air and to everything that moves in the store at night.

When you empty the last of a bag, shake it out and check the bottom for clumps, insects or damp feed. If you find a problem, do not put that feed back with the rest. Clean out any spilled feed from the pallet and the floor, because left-over meal feeds the next generation of pests.

Reading the feed: smell, feel and colour

Before you feed any bag, look at it, smell it and feel it. Fresh feed has a clean, grainy or toasted smell, depending on the ingredients, and it runs freely through the fingers. Spoiled feed smells musty, sour or like damp cardboard, and it clumps into lumps that stay together when you squeeze them. A bag that feels warm to the touch, or that has an area of wet or dark feed, has probably begun to heat, and heating feeds the mould.

Look for visible signs too. Any fuzzy patch, whether white, green, grey or black, means mould is growing. Fine webbing through the meal is a sign of moth larvae. Small holes in grains or pellets, and dusty brown powder at the bottom of the bag, can mean weevils have been feeding. Live insects moving through the feed are a clear warning.

Do not rely on a smell test alone. Some mould produces little odour, and some damage is hidden inside the kernels. Use all your senses together, and if in doubt, set the bag aside and ask a qualified person to look at it.

When a bag has gone bad

A bag that shows mould, heating or a heavy insect infestation should not be fed to the birds. Mouldy feed can carry toxins that harm the flock, and the danger is not always visible. Remove the bag from the store, seal it in a bag or container, and keep it away from the feed and the birds until you decide what to do with it. Do not feed it to other animals or to the birds because it is cheaper to throw away.

Disposal needs care too. Do not tip mouldy feed into a pond, a water source or a drain, and do not leave it where children or animals can reach it. A deep pit or a proper waste site, well away from the water and the house, is the usual answer. Tell the supplier if the feed came from them, because a bad batch can affect other buyers, and a supplier who knows about it can check the mill.

If the flock has been eating feed that you now suspect was spoiled, watch the birds closely and call a vet. Changes in appetite, weight, droppings or egg production can all follow poor feed quality, but they can also come from disease, so a diagnosis is needed before you act on the feed alone.

Keeping the store free of chemicals

Many farms keep a mix of things in the same store: feed, fertiliser, fuel, drugs, cleaning products and sometimes pesticides for the crops. This is the easiest way to contaminate feed. Fuel and pesticide fumes can taint feed, and a spilled bottle of anything can soak into a bag. Keep feed in its own store, or at least in its own marked section, and keep every chemical in a sealed cabinet on a separate shelf.

If you use an insect control product in the store, use only a product that is registered for use in stored grain or feed, follow the label to the letter, and keep the birds and the feed well away while it is applied. Never spray a pesticide directly onto feed, and do not use a crop pesticide in the feed store. A product used on the wrong surface can leave residues that affect the flock and, in the end, the people who eat the eggs and meat.

Cleanliness does most of the work. Sweep the store regularly, clear out old sacks and spilled meal, and keep the walls and corners free of dust and webs. A clean store gives pests less to feed on, and it makes new infestations easy to spot early.

Buying for the weeks ahead, not the months

The temptation to buy in bulk is strong, especially when prices are low or when a supplier has a good batch. Bulk buying saves money only if the feed is used before it deteriorates. In the rains and in humid coastal areas, feed bought for a long period can lose quality before the last bags are opened. Mash in particular should be used within a few weeks of delivery in humid conditions, and pellets usually keep a little longer.

A sensible rule is to buy enough for the next few weeks, plus a small reserve for delays, and no more. Work out the weekly use from your flock size and the feed intake per bird, which our poultry feed calculator can help with, and plan the deliveries around that figure. The next delivery is then a question of timing, not guesswork. If you also keep laying hens, our layer egg profit calculator shows how the feed bill compares with egg income.

If you are starting a flock, the feed plan should begin with the chicks. Our layer chicks and broiler chicks pages explain what each stage needs, and the starting guide shows how to plan the feed budget before the first delivery arrives.

What changes in the harmattan and the cool months

The harmattan period is often thought of as the safe time for feed, because the air is dry. It is safer for moisture, but it creates other problems. Dust gets into the store and onto the bags, the store is often closed up against the cold, and the birds may eat more in the cool air, which means feed moves faster. A store that was emptied slowly in the rains can run out quickly in the harmattan, so check the stock book more often in these months.

Dust can also carry spores and fine debris into the trough. Keep the feeders covered between servings, clean them regularly, and avoid filling them to the brim in dusty weather. The birds will waste less, and the feed stays cleaner.

Once the cool season ends and the rains return, the storage problems return too. Plan the change in advance. A deep clean of the store and a full check of the pallets before the rains begin pays back many times over in feed that stays good. For the wider picture of running a flock through the year, see poultry farming in Ghana.

The weekly walk through the store

Once a week, walk the store with a notebook. Lift the edge of each stack to see whether the bottom bags are damp. Check the pallets for sagging, the walls for wet patches and the roof for leaks. Look inside the open bags for insects and clumps, and smell the feed in each bin. Check the doors and vents for gaps, and note any droppings or gnawed corners.

Write down what you find, even if it is nothing. A clean report each week is the best evidence that the store is working. A change in one week, such as a new smell or a new patch of wet floor, is much easier to deal with when it is caught early. If something is wrong, act at once: move the affected bags, clean the area and fix the gap before the problem spreads.

Finally, keep the walk regular. Storage problems are rarely sudden. They build over weeks, and a store that is walked every week gives you the chance to deal with each small problem before it becomes a loss. Our blog has more notes on running a small farm, and the FAQ page answers common questions about getting started.

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