Pelleting Process for Poultry Feed-Your Complete Guide To Pelleting
Nowadays, the introduction of pellet poultry feed into the market has revolutionized poultry farming. It also offers several advantages over conventional feeding systems. The rapid development in the poultry industry was out there. Therefore, conventional methods were unable to fulfil nutritional needs.
Thus, the farmers were in search of another feed product that had the potential to meet fast-growing farming’s nutritional needs.
You can experience the miracles of pellet poultry feed in different forms. It includes easy digestion, more nutritious, and hassle free transportation. These benefits make pellet feed an ideal choice to fulfil modern poultry farming’s requirements.
In this blog, we will explain the pelleting process for poultry feed with a step-by-step guideline. Moreover, this blog will also cover the benefits of pellet feed in poultry farming and different factors to ensure the best quality pellet.
Benefits of Pellet Feed for Poultry
Here are some potential benefits of pellet feed for poultry:
- Reduce feed wastage and prevent animals from picking and choosing.
- Lessen feed dust due to less particle natural losses.
- More digestibility due to the starch breakage during conditioning and pelleting.
- Increase feed palatability.
- Less chances of selective feeding and providing a balanced diet.
- Prevent separation of essential ingredients during handling, mixing, and feeding.
- This helps to save energy and time used by the birds to grab food.
Poultry Chicken Feed Ingredients
The details of raw materials used for the pelleting process of poultry feed include:
Corn grains – The inclusion rate of corn grains is 32% for poultry chicken pellets. This percentage is approximately 32% out of the total feed ingredients.
Wheat sprouts – the proportion of wheat sprouts is up to 20% of the total inclusion.
Wheat bran – it covers almost 8% of raw ingredients.
Rice polish – up to 7% of the total feed ingredients.
Molasses – best for provision of carbs and binding. You can include it up to 3 %.
Meals – the famous meals for poultry chicken are:
- Canola meal = 5%
- Sunflower meal = 3%
- Fish meal = 3%
Palm oil – plays a role in better poultry performance, and 3% is enough.
Minerals and additives – You can include these components as per need.
The inclusion of raw materials in poultry pellet feed varies. It depends on the type and nature of farming. Thus, it would be better to consult a nutritionist for a perfect feed formulation. Such a formulation that meets your bird’s nutritional needs.
Are you curious how such a marvelous pelleting process is carried out? Well, here we go to explore the process of pelleting for poultry feed.
Poultry Feed Pellet Making Process
Here, we discuss the poultry feed pellet-making process in detail with a briefing of each step:
1-Crushing
First, we need to crush the whole poultry feed ingredients into small particles. This makes them suitable for pelleting.
Feed crushers help in crushing the raw ingredients into the desired particle size. But always remember that particles should never be too fine. Chickens prefer to eat pellet/crushed grain feed.
Moreover, too much fineness will also hinder the pelleting process. It will also affect the quality of pellets.
2- Mixing
To make pellets, you need to mix the ground ingredients. You need to mix these ground ingredients in specific proportions.
Thus, a poultry feed mixer is present in the chicken feed production line. Its function is to mix and blend the crushed feed using a powerful blender. There are different types of mixers, including:
- Single shaft mixers
- Twin paddle mixers
- Ribbon mixer
Usually, these mixers come with an automatic spray system. It serves to add liquids to the blend to enhance the quality of poultry feed pellets.
3-Pelleting
Now, the most essential step is the pelleting of the mixed feed ingredients. Steam conditioning has to be done before entering the feed into the pellet machine.
Steam conditioners have 10% to 12% moisture with a temperature of 80 to 90 ℃. These are the temperature and moisture requirements that are essential for conditioning.
Water and heat play roles in the lubrication and gelatinization of raw starch. Moreover, they also ensure better pellet quality.
4-Cooling
Cooling is necessary after the pelleting process. It is necessary to avoid sticking during storage and transportation.
The moisture content and temperature get high during the feed conditioning; we need to reduce the moisture and temperature in this step. A counterflow cooler helps to reduce the temperature to below 8 ℃.
However, cooling is crucial to enhance pellet quality by avoiding deformation. Moreover, it helps to permit the solidifying structure of the poultry feed pellets.
5-Packing
Before you start packing, sieve the uniform-sized poultry feed pellets. After sieving, the packing starts. Packing includes different segments, such as:
- Weighing
- Bagging
- Slitting finished products
Automatic packing equipment is there in the feed production line. It helps with the packing process of large-scale pellet feed manufacturing.
There are different ways of shipping finished products, i.e., whether in bulk form or bags. Bagging is preferred due to the ease of this transportation process.
Factors Affecting the Quality of Poultry Feed Pellets
You can feed the poultry to the optimum level with the production of good quality feed pellets.
Several factors come into play that affect the pelleting process. Here, we discuss some significant factors, including:
Particle size
The smaller the particle size, the more will be the available surface area for adherence. Thus, the greater pellet strength.
Fat inclusion
The ingredients that you use for pellet making should have low-fat percentages. The reason is that the high fat % of the ingredients makes the pellets less durable.
Conditioning
A correct combination of steam and temperature is essential to get good-quality pellets.
Moisture addition
The binding of pellet particles will be more if you add water during mixing and steam during conditioning.
Conclusion
A successful pelleting process acts as a cornerstone for optimizing poultry nutrition. Pellet feed has multifaceted benefits for poultry. It makes it an ideal approach to get better performance and economic efficiency.
Moreover, A holistic approach that addresses quality control measures, process parameters, and raw material quality is essential for ensuring nutritious and consistent feed for poultry.
