How To Make Animal Feed Pellets
In the complex system of animal breeding, the quality and production process of feed is as crucial as the cornerstone, which is directly related to animal health, growth efficiency and breeding efficiency. Animal feed pellets have become the core element of modern aquaculture industry by virtue of its balanced nutrition, easy storage and feeding, and other significant advantages.
Next, this article will explore the whole process of animal feed pellet production, from the analysis of a variety of feed types, the careful selection of raw materials, to the rigorous and meticulous production steps, effective strategies to improve quality, and then to the detailed explanation of various types of production equipment, to provide you with a full range of professional knowledge of the production of animal feed pellets and practice points to help you in the field of animal husbandry to realize the efficient and scientific production and management of feed. management in the field of animal breeding.
Different Types of Animal Feed
Compound Feeds
Compound feed is a specialized and customized solution for animal nutrition, with ingredients ranging from processed, semi-processed and raw materials. It is a customized nutritional navigator for the unique dietary needs of different animal species at all stages of their lives, from pups, to growth, to reproduction, ensuring adequate and appropriate nutritional support at every step of their growth and development.
Mixed Feed
The core of a mixed feed is the mechanical mixing technology, which combines multiple ingredients or feeds in depth. Whether it is protein, fat, carbohydrates, or all kinds of vitamins and minerals, all of them can find the right proportion in the mixed feed, which can satisfy the comprehensive nutritional requirements of the animal’s daily diet, and lay a solid foundation for the animal’s health.
Cereals Feed
Corn, oats, barley and other grains occupy a significant position in animal feed. Their rich carbohydrates are converted into energy in the animal’s body, driving the daily activities and growth process of pigs, cows, chickens and other livestock. At the same time, the fiber content in grains helps to maintain normal peristalsis in the animal’s intestinal tract, promote digestion and absorption, and prevent digestive problems such as constipation.
Pellet Feed
Pellet feed is popular among rabbits, poultry and other animals for its compact and easy-to-absorb form and customized nutritional advantages. It compresses a variety of nutrients into tightly packed pellets, making it easy for animals to feed and digest while increasing feed density. Moreover, the formula can be precisely adjusted according to the specific nutritional needs of different animals, such as the high protein needs of young animals and the calcium and phosphorus needs of egg-laying poultry, to ensure that each pellet contains comprehensive and balanced nutrients, which provides a strong guarantee for the growth of animals.
Silage Feed
Silage is made from corn, grass, alfalfa and other crops through the fermentation process, and it is an ideal food for ruminants such as cows and goats. The fermentation process not only preserves the nutrients in the raw materials, but also produces unique flavor and organic acid, which enhances the palatability of the feed and promotes the feeding and digestion of ruminants.
Supplements
Supplements play a key role in animal breeding when conventional feeds are unable to meet all the nutritional needs of the animals. It contains minerals, vitamins, amino acids, etc., which are essential for animal growth, and can be flexibly mixed into regular feed or fed separately according to the specific nutritional deficiency of the animal.
Common Raw Materials Used in Animal Feed Pellets
Cereals
Cereals, such as corn and wheat, are important providers of energy in animal feed, and their rich starch is efficiently converted into energy in the animal’s body to maintain life activities. At the same time, the fiber content in grains has a physiological function that cannot be ignored, it increases the volume of feed, stimulates intestinal peristalsis, promotes digestion and absorption, prevents intestinal diseases, and plays a key role in safeguarding the intestinal health of animals, and is the basic raw material for building a healthy digestive system.
Wine Lees
Wine lees, as the residue after brewing ethanol from wheat, sorghum or corn, are rich in nutrients. The oils and fats in it provide extra energy, the proteins support animal growth and tissue repair, and the fiber helps maintain intestinal function. These nutrients work in concert with each other to make wine lees a valuable feed ingredient that excels in enhancing the nutritional value of feeds, reducing costs, and providing diversified nutritional support for animal growth.
Soybean Meal
Soybean meal is derived from soybeans and has become a star ingredient in animal feed with its high protein content. Its protein composition is rich and balanced in amino acids, which is easy for animals to digest and absorb, especially suitable for the rapid growth of young animals and the fattening needs of meat animals. Whether it’s pigs, poultry or cattle, soybean meal provides critical protein support for muscle development and weight gain at all stages of growth.
Canola Meal
Canola meal, the residue from the oil extraction of rapeseed, is rich in protein, carbohydrates and fiber, and also contains a variety of micronutrients critical to animal health, such as B vitamins, calcium, iron, selenium and manganese. In poultry, dairy cattle and other livestock feeds, canola meal not only provides comprehensive nutrition, but also plays an important role in promoting animal growth, improving production performance and maintaining body health due to its unique combination of nutrients.
Fish Meal
Fish meal is a high protein raw material processed from fish, with excellent protein quality and rich in amino acids essential for animal growth. In aquaculture, fishmeal is the core ingredient of fish feed, which can satisfy the high demand for high-quality protein and promote growth and immune function. Fishmeal is also important in terrestrial animal feeds, as it contains omega-3 fatty acids, which are beneficial to animal heart health, improve meat quality and enhance disease resistance, and is a key factor in improving feed quality.
Feather Meal
Feather meal is processed from poultry feathers and has a protein content of 75 – 90%, making it a potential high protein feed resource. However, due to its special protein structure, the digestibility of feather meal is relatively low. When used, it needs to be carefully controlled in terms of the amount to be added and combined with appropriate processing techniques, such as enzymolysis, puffing, etc., in order to improve its digestibility and utilization, and to ensure that it meets the protein needs of animals without affecting their health.
Filling Materials
Filling materials such as calcium phosphate and limestone play a key role in animal feed, although their dosage is relatively small. They are rich in calcium, phosphorus and other mineral elements, which are essential for animal bone development and maintenance of bone strength. In the process of animal growth, especially in the stage of rapid bone growth of young animals, adding appropriate amount of filler materials can effectively prevent bone diseases, ensure the normal development of animal locomotor system, and provide solid support for the healthy growth of animals.
How To Make Feed Pellets For Animals
Raw Material Milling
Using a grain mill to pulverize raw materials for animals or poultry feed ingredients, such as soybean meal, corn, etc., into a fine powder is the first step in making feed pellets. The homogeneous size and increased surface area of the pulverized material facilitates the subsequent mixing and pelleting process. In the crushing process, according to the characteristics of raw materials and particle production requirements, reasonable adjustment of the parameters of the mill to ensure that the fineness and quality of the powder, to create favorable conditions for the formation of high-quality feed particles.
Raw Material Mixing
Putting the crushed raw material powder into the mixer for full mixing is the key link to realize the nutritional balance of feed. In this process, vitamins, bone meal and other additives can be added according to the nutritional requirements of animals to ensure that various nutrients are evenly distributed in each feed. The uniformity of mixing directly affects the quality of feed, should strictly control the mixing time and mixing speed, through regular testing of the mixing effect, to ensure the stability and consistency of the feed, so that the animal in the feeding process to obtain a comprehensive and balanced nutrition.
High Temperature And High Pressure Granulation
After the mixed raw materials enter the animal feed processing machine through the conveyor, they are pressed into high-density solid particles of uniform size and shape under the environment of high temperature and high pressure. During this process, the physical structure of the raw material is changed and the density of the pellets is increased, which improves the storage stability and palatability of the feed. The pressure, temperature and mold parameters of the granulator need to be precisely adjusted according to the characteristics of the raw material and the specifications of the pellets, to ensure that the pellets are well formed, without loose, broken and other problems, to ensure the quality and quality of the feed pellets.
Cooling And Screening
The freshly made feed pellets are hot and may contain a small amount of fine powder, which needs to be cooled and screened by the pellet cooler and screening machine. The cooler quickly reduces the temperature of the pellets and removes excess water to prevent mold and deterioration of the feed during storage; the sifter effectively removes fine powder and unqualified particles to ensure the uniformity and integrity of the pellets. After cooling and screening, the feed particles can enter the packaging process to ensure that the quality of the final product meets the standard, providing safe and reliable feed for animals.
Packaging And Storage
The cooled and screened pellets should be bagged and stored with suitable packaging materials. Good quality packaging can effectively isolate air, moisture and light to prevent oxidation, moisture and loss of nutrients. The storage environment should be dry and well ventilated to avoid high temperature, high humidity and pests. Reasonable packaging and storage conditions can extend the shelf life of feeds, maintain the nutritional stability of feeds, and ensure that animals can consume fresh and nutritious feeds throughout the breeding cycle.
Advantages of pelleted feeds
Improvement Of Production Performance
Pelletized feeds have a significant impact on animal performance, but are limited by the quality of the pellets. High-quality pelleted feeds promote feed intake, improve feed conversion, and in turn increase body weight and carcass weight. Taking broiler farming as an example, research shows that as the proportion of complete pellets in feed rises, feed intake, body weight gain, feed conversion rate and carcass weight all improve significantly. For every 10% increase in complete pellets, the feed conversion rate can be increased by 0.4 points, carcass weight increased by 10 grams, and the weight of the breast muscle increased by 4 grams, which fully proves that pellet quality has a key impact on the performance of the production.
Nutrient Density
Pelleting effect is closely related to the nutrient density of feed. At different levels of nutrient density, the performance of animals fed pelleted feeds is better than that of meal, but the advantage of pelleting is more prominent at lower nutrient densities. As nutrient density increases, the positive response of pelleting gradually diminishes. Therefore, when designing feed formulations, it is necessary to take animal demand and cost-effectiveness into account, and reasonably adjust the nutrient density to ensure that pelleting can maximize the value of the feed and optimize the benefits of farming.
Reducing The Impact Of Toxins
When feeds are contaminated with mycotoxins such as deoxynivalenol (DON), pelleting can improve animal performance to a certain extent. Although pelleting does not reduce DON concentrations, it can mitigate the negative effects of the toxin on the animal by altering the physical structure of the feed and the feeding behavior of the animal, increasing the average daily weight gain and the gain-to-weight feed ratio. However, for other mycotoxins, the mitigating effect of pelleting is uncertain, and should be combined with natural mycotoxin control products in actual production to ensure animal health and production safety.
Other Significant Advantages
Pelleting has many other advantages, such as masking the taste of undesirable ingredients, reducing picky eating and improving feed palatability; reducing feed wastage during storage and feeding, shortening feeding time and improving production efficiency; improving the flow of feed in the silo, saving storage space, reducing ingredient segregation and dust generation, and optimizing the farming environment and ease of operation. All these advantages work together to improve the quality and economic efficiency of farming in multiple dimensions.
How to Improve the Quality of animal Feed Pellets?
Pellet Size Reduction
Reducing the size of raw material pellets significantly increases their surface area and facilitates inter-particle adhesion, thus improving the quality of feed pellets. During the milling process, finer milling equipment can be used or milling parameters can be adjusted to achieve smaller particle sizes. However, attention should be paid to avoid excessive crushing lead to increased energy consumption and loss of nutrients, through the optimization of the crushing process, in order to ensure that the particle size reduction at the same time, to maintain the nutritional integrity of the raw material and economic benefits.
Reduce The Production Rate
Appropriately reduce the production rate of feed particles, can extend the residence time of raw materials in the particle mold, enhance the thermal reaction of nutrients, improve the adhesion of particles and firmness. In actual production, the production rate can be controlled by adjusting the feed rate of the equipment, screw speed and other parameters. However, in reducing the production rate at the same time, need to take into account the production efficiency and cost, to ensure that under the premise of improving the quality of the particles, without affecting the overall production schedule and economic benefits.
Increase Steam Tempering Temperature
Increasing the steam tempering temperature can increase the moisture and heat of raw materials, effectively enhance the adhesion of feed particles and improve the quality of particles. In the operation process, according to the characteristics of raw materials and equipment performance, precise control of steam temperature and additive amount, to avoid too high a temperature leading to the destruction of raw materials and nutrients or too much moisture caused by moldy particles. Through scientific and reasonable increase of steam tempering temperature, to realize the stable improvement of pellet quality.
Use Of Thicker Pellet Molds
The use of thicker pellet molds can extend the residence time of the raw material in the mold, promote the thermal reaction of nutrients and the close adhesion of the pellets, and improve the quality of the pellets. When selecting a mold, the impact of mold thickness on pellet quality should be assessed in conjunction with the characteristics of the raw material, production equipment and pellet specifications. At the same time, pay attention to the material and processing precision of the mold to ensure that the mold can produce high quality feed pellets stably while extending the residence time.
Adjustment Of Feed Formulation
Low-cost feed formulations may not be able to meet the pellet quality requirements. Adjusting the formulation appropriately may increase the cost, but if it can significantly improve the pellet quality and the subsequent growth performance of the animals, it is expected to reduce the overall production cost. When adjusting the formula, it is necessary to fully consider the nutritional requirements of the animals, the characteristics of raw materials and cost factors, to avoid excessive frictional heat in the mold due to the adjustment of the formula and reduce the availability of nutrients. Through precise formulation optimization, we can achieve a win-win situation in terms of pellet quality and breeding efficiency.
Equipment for Making Animal Feed Pellets
Raw Material Storage Tanks
As the starting point of the feed pellet production process, the raw material storage tank is responsible for storing all kinds of raw materials and auxiliary materials. Its design should fully consider the physical and chemical properties of different raw materials, such as moisture-proof and mold-proof for grains, and light-proof and sealed for additives. Through the provision of a stable raw material supply environment, to ensure that the raw materials are not damp, do not deteriorate, to maintain their original quality, to lay a solid foundation for the subsequent processing links, to protect the continuity and stability of the production process.
Feed Hammer Mill
Feed hammer mill is the core equipment for crushing raw materials into suitable particle size. Its working principle is to use high-speed rotating hammer to impact, shear and friction on the raw material, so that it is crushed into powder. During the crushing process, the powder size can be controlled by replacing the screens with different apertures to meet the needs of different feed particles. The performance of hammer mill directly affects the crushing effect of raw materials, which in turn affects the quality and molding effect of feed particles, and is an indispensable and important link in the feed production line.
Feed Mixer
Feed pellet mixer is responsible for mixing the crushed raw material powder to ensure the uniform distribution of various nutrients. It has various mixing methods, such as spiral mixing, paddle mixing, etc. Through different mixing structures and speed combinations, it can realize the best mixing effect. During the mixing process, all kinds of additives can be added precisely to ensure the balance and stability of feed nutrition. High-quality mixer can effectively avoid raw material stratification and caking, providing a uniform and consistent raw material base for subsequent pelletizing.
Feed Pellet Mill
Feed pellet mill is the key equipment for producing animal feed pellets, which is divided into two designs: flat die and ring die. Flat die pellet mills are simple in structure and easy to operate, suitable for small-scale farmers to produce feed pellets on their own farms to meet the feeding needs of a small number of livestock; ring die pellet mills, on the other hand, have higher productivity and stability, and are suitable for large-scale feed producers to cope with the task of supplying feed to a large number of livestock breeding. Its working principle is that by applying high pressure to the mixed raw materials, they are molded into granular feed in the mold. During the granulation process, the physical structure of the raw materials is changed and the density of the granules is increased, which improves the storage and feeding performance of the feed.
Feed Cooler
The feed pellet cooler rapidly reduces the temperature and moisture content of the pellets after pelleting to prevent mold and deterioration of the feed. Its working principle is to use air convection or water cooling and other ways to take away the heat of the particles, so that the particles quickly cooled to room temperature. The performance parameters of the cooler, such as cooling air volume, cooling time, etc., should be reasonably configured according to the production scale and characteristics of the particles, to ensure that the particles in a short period of time to achieve the appropriate storage conditions, to ensure the stability of the quality of the feed and shelf life.
Feed Particle Screening And Grading Machine
Feed particle screening and grading machine is mainly used to remove fine powder and unqualified particles produced in the process of pelletizing, and to grade qualified particles. It classifies the particles according to their size by means of sieves with different apertures or wind grading principle. The screening and grading process can ensure the consistency of the quality of the final product, so that the size of feed particles in line with the feeding habits of different animals and digestive requirements, to improve the utilization rate of feed and breeding efficiency.
Weighing And Packing Machine
In large-scale feed production enterprises, feed pellet weighing and packaging machine is the key equipment to realize standardized production and sales. It can accurately pack feed particles according to the set weight to ensure that the weight of each bag of products meets the specified standards, to meet the market requirements for product consistency and standardization. The advanced weighing and packaging machine has fast and accurate weighing function and efficient packaging capacity, which can effectively improve the production efficiency, reduce the manual error, and enhance the market competitiveness of the products and customer satisfaction. For farmers’ homemade feed pellets, if the output is small and only for the use of their own farms, they can flexibly choose whether to purchase a packaging machine and use dry containers to store the feed pellets; however, if there is a demand for external sales or long-term regulated storage, a packaging machine is essential to provide good protection and labeling of the products for easy transportation, storage and sales.
Other Auxiliary Machines
In an automated cattle feed pellet production line, auxiliary machines such as conveyors and elevators play an important role in material handling and transfer. Conveyors can smoothly and continuously transport raw materials from storage tanks to crushers, transport crushed raw materials to mixers, and transport pelletized products to subsequent stages such as coolers, screeners and packaging machines, ensuring smooth flow of materials in the production line and avoiding production delays or material spills caused by untimely or irregular manual handling. Elevator can realize efficient transfer of materials between production equipments of different heights, and cooperate with conveyor to further improve the automation and overall production efficiency of the production process, reduce the labor intensity and time cost of manual operation, and guarantee the stable operation of the production line and efficient production capacity.
Conclusion
The production of animal feed pellets is a complex process that involves many aspects of knowledge and technology. From the precise selection of suitable raw materials, to the strict adherence to scientific production steps, to the rational use of advanced production equipment and optimization strategies, each link is closely linked to determine the quality of feed pellets and the healthy growth of animals.
In actual production, feed producers need to continue to learn and master the latest professional knowledge, pay close attention to the changes in animal nutritional requirements and the development of industry technology, and continue to optimize the production process to ensure that the production of high-quality, high-efficiency animal feed pellets to provide strong support for the sustainable development of the livestock industry, and to promote the prosperity and progress of the animal breeding industry.
