Cotton seeds

Cotton Seeds The mature seeds are brown ovoids weighing about a tenth of a gram. By weight, they are 60% cotyledon, 32% coat and 8% embryonic root and shoot. These are 20% protein, 20% oil and 3.5% starch. Fibres grow from the seed coat to form a boll of cotton lint. The boll is a protective fruit and when the plant is grown commercially, it is stripped from the seed by ginning and the lint is then processed into cotton fibre. For every hundred weight of fibre, about one hundred and sixty weight of seeds are produced. The seeds are about 15% of the value of the crop and are pressed to make oil and used as animal feed. About 5% of the seeds are used to sow the next crop. Uses of Cottonseed Feed products for livestock With the advancement of technology, the processing of food has become considerably convenient. As a result cottonseed has been able to flourish in new markets such as feed products for livestock. Cotton seed is crushed in the mill after removing lint from the cotton plant. The seed is further crushed to remove any remaining linters or strands of minute cotton fibres. The seeds are further hulled and polished to release the soft and high-protein meat. These hulls of the cottonseed are then mixed with other types of grains in order to make it suitable for the livestock feed. Cottonseed Meal and Cottonseed Hulls are the most abundantly available natural sources of protein and fibre used to feed livestock. Cottonseed Hulls The outer covering of the cottonseed, known as cottonseed hulls, are removed from the cotton kernels before the oil is extracted. Cottonseed hulls serve as an excellent source of feed for the livestock as they contain about 8% of cotton linters which have nearly 100% cellulose in them. They require no grinding and easily mix with other feel sources. As they are easy to handle, their transportation cost is fairly low as well. Due to a superior nutrition quality,cottonseed hulls they serve as valuable digestive sources for animals. Whole cottonseed is another feed product of cottonseed used to feed livestock. It is the seed, left after the separation of long fibres from cotton and serves as a good source of cellulose for ruminants.Whole Cottonseed leads to high production of milk and fat, if it is been fed to a high-producing dairy cow. It is very cost effective and provides nutrients such as high protein value of about 23%, crude fibre value of 25% and high energy value of 20%. Whole Cottonseed serves as a highly digestible feed which also improves the reproductive performance in livestock. Pima cottonseed which is free of linters by default,and De-linted Cottonseed are other types of cottonseed feed products.