Cattle Feed

Animal feed comes in many forms. Pelleted or mash feeds are popular in the market. Both products share a similar production sequence until the mixing process. pelleted feed needs to undergo pellet mill, cooler, and sifter after the mash is prepared.

Mash feed is a form of a complete feed that is finely ground and mixed so that animals or birds cannot easily separate the essential nutrients. The purpose of feeding mash diet is to provide a well-balanced diet, give greater growth unification, less death-incurred loss also feeding mash feed is more economical. When producing mash feed, the material undergoes pre-grinding before mixing and packing.

Pelleted feed is the continuation of mash feed. The purpose of pelleting is for easy transport and feeding. The nutrient value in every pellet is the same, so farmed animals will consume all the good nutrients incorporated inside the pellets.

Raw Material

The raw material for cattle feed consists of coarse and powdery material

15 Dec（你看不見，這個理論上可以不要加）

Pre-grinding

Optional step for coarse material.
Pre-grinding will lower the energy needed for fine grinding.

Daily Tank Storage

Daily tank storage will contain the material needed for production that day.
Some material from the silo will be placed in this daily tank before entering the flow of feed production.

Dosing and Weighing

The material will be dosed based on the formula.

Post-grinding

Post-grinding is the final size reduction in the system.
It is common to use fine grinder in this process.

Mixing

In this step, trace ingredients such as vitamins, minerals, and other liquid materials will be added.

Powder Feed (Mash Feed)

Pelleting

Pelleting starts with pre-conditioning, adding steam to further hydrate, and cook the material before entering the pelleting chamber to be formed into pellets.

Cooling

Cooling utilizes ambient air to cool down the hot pellet from the post-conditioner (or dryer).
Thorough cooling is needed to prevent condensation inside the packaging.

Pelleted Feed

Crumbling

In animal feed production, it is common to crumbler the feed.
This particle reduction is needed for easier consumption in smaller animal or poultry

Packing

Packing gives protection to the pellets and also give easiness to handle and transport to customer's hand

Pelleting process description for cattle feeds

Raw material silo and intake systems Corn, soybean, rice, and other macro ingredients are stored and conveyed to an individual silo.

Dosing and weighing are used for dosing the raw materials based on the formula.

Grinding system When required, coarse or fine grinding will be done to reduce the particle size.

Mixing system Depending on the formulation some liquid, fat, or molasses will be added to the mixer. The well-mixed mash can be directed to the finished product bins for bagging or carried away by trucks in bulks when producing mash feed. The mash feed can also be directed to the pellet forming machine.

Pelleting with Pre-conditioning Well-mixed mash is fed to a pre-conditioner where the mash will be heated either by steam or electric heater, to kill salmonella and other harmful bacteria. Pre-conditioned mash feed is then pelleted.

Cooling

The counterflow cooler is used for cooling pellet and extrudate. Warm (hot) pellets get into the cooling chamber, the suction fan will transport out the air inside the chamber, and fresh ambient air will enter the chamber from the bottom, promoting pellet cooling action. When pellets are accumulated and touch the high-level limit sensor, a pneumatic discharge swivel valve will operate immediately to discharge the products. Counterflow air heat exchange ensures to achieve high cooling efficiency.

Impurity and dust sieve

Pellets are conveyed through a sieve to remove impurity and deformed pellets. Fines and deformed pellets are recycled back to bins before the pellet mill. The sieved pellet of different sizes is stored in individual bins.

Bagging and sealing system

Finished pellets will be placed in bags or other transportation vessels to the reseller or customer site.

Pellet crumbling system

IDAH crumbler series is designed for high capacity and highly efficient particle reduction. Every crumbler is equipped with the feeder on the top, to control the throughput of the product. The roll gap is easily adjustable to achieve the required granulation.

Features and Benefits of IDAH Process Design and Equipment

IDAH firmly believes in a strategy of design fit for purpose. We recognize the constraints our customers face with rising ingredient costs, energy costs, and overheads costs, yet in the face of these challenges, it is still expected that high-quality products be supplied into a very competitive market. Our design philosophy is to work continuously to refine and improve processes and equipment to maximize the success of our customers. The following describes some of the features and benefits resulting from this philosophy.

Heat sensitive formulation

Piglet feeds formula usually contain milk powder or sugar which are heat-sensitive ingredients. When exposed to heat, milk powder and sugar can form browning Maillard Reaction which will result in brown color. A low-temperature pre-conditioning is the key to success with mash at outlet attains temperature no higher than 50 °C.

Other pig feed formulation

Formulation usually contains a high amount of grains: barley, wheat, or corn. With different proportions of those grains, the parameters of the pellet mill operation vary. Usually, steam is used to pre-condition the mash. In Pig feed, molasses may be added during mixing or after the pellet is formed.