Feed mills
The decision to establish a feed factory must be preceded by a careful study of the field of marketing the product, the quantities that can be marketed, the numbers and quality of animals in the field of marketing, the needs of farmers, the extent of competition with other feed factories that can serve in the same field, the cost of establishing the factory and the return from its establishment.
Site selection:
The site is chosen if railway services, road networks leading to the site, electricity, water, sewage, safety, fire, employment, government services, proximity to raw materials sources and distribution areas are available, where the cost of raw materials supply is low. It has a bad effect on the mixing balance when the soft mash is exposed to it, as the denser materials fall to the bottom of the bags when vigorously shaken. It is also taken into account when choosing the location of the factory that there is sufficient space for parking large transport vehicles and trailers with ease of movement in entry and exit, weighing, loading and unloading, and the factory is far from residential buildings.
The aim of establishing feed factories:
The aim of establishing feed factories is to produce complete feed mixtures that provide the nutritional needs of the herds so that all types of feed are produced to meet the nutritional needs of the herd for which they were made. In addition to considering the nutritional components of the produced feed, its production cost must be low by using the best raw materials, the lowest price, the lowest manufacturing cost, and the installation Produced feed We specialize in animal and poultry feeding, as well as purchasing raw materials, analyzing them externally and chemically, and analyzing the produced feed to test its quality.
Large factories can provide the necessary expertise in this field, while small factories and farmers usually obtain scientific knowledge through advisory services or from agricultural colleges and research centers.
The actual work of the feed factories is the implementation of the feed formulas that have been developed by specialists in nutrition, receiving raw materials, storing them, grinding the components of the feeds, mixing them well and packaging them, and that is accompanied by a good use of mechanical and electrical devices and equipment, which are in large factories that are complex in installation and expensive and require specialized experience in their operation and periodic maintenance regularly.
The types of food produced by feed factories vary, so we find that poultry feed:
1. Complete feed: It contains all the nutritional compounds necessary to form a balanced diet.
2. Protein concentrates: their addition to the diet ranges between 10% and 35% and contains sources of protein, minerals, vitamins and micro-components.
3. Super concentration: It is added to the diet at a lower rate than the previous one, and it contains animal protein sources, and it does not contain soybean meal, and it contains all the minerals, vitamins, and micro-ingredients necessary for the diet, and its addition rate ranges between 2% and 5%.
4. Premix: It contains micro-minerals, vitamins and micro-components added to carrier materials and added at a rate not exceeding 1%.
With regard to the type of food for different animals, complete food is divided into:
1- Conventional feeds
It is composed of concentrated feed materials of high nutritional value, all of which are commonly used feed materials, and they represent poultry feed and concentrated feed for ruminants.
2- Unconventional feeds
It is composed of concentrated feed materials, in addition to some uncommonly used forage materials, such as coarse feed materials, to raise their nutritional value, and some non-protein nitrogenous materials such as urea, as well as raw materials that are not commonly used, such as food factory waste.
Buildings and planning: Building and layout
Good design and planning for the different sections in the feed factory is a necessity, and small factories do not constitute a problem, but when establishing large factories, it becomes necessary to consult specialists. The buildings are either steel frames and brick walls, or concrete buildings. And buildings with iron frames need a shorter time in their installation, and the choice between the two construction methods depends on choosing the most appropriate for the conditions of construction. In both cases, the insulation must be good so that the factory is not too hot in Egypt’s long summer, and the standards and specifications must be implemented accurately Bulk components and to have flexibility in and out of large trucks.
The factory is designed so as to allow the car scale to be placed near the entrance, and an office room must be built for the scale, and the scale must be of the length and efficiency that is suitable for large trucks, so it is 15 m long and a load of 100 tons. Customer reception, parking lots, storage areas and umbrellas.
Production Capacity: Capacity
The feed industry begins with the process of grinding grains, impregnation, and mixing them manually or by using small mixing units, which is a vertical mixer with a capacity of 1.5 tons. be unsafe.
This is followed by simple feed factories with limited energy. The production capacity of the factories is estimated at the number of tons produced per hour. Such small factories have a capacity of 1-2 tons / hour and depend largely on manual labour. They may include a small 7.5 horsepower mill with a vertical or horizontal mixer of 0.5 tons and the like. This unit operates for 2-5 days per week, and the rest of the week the feed is distributed to production sites or marketed to nearby farms, and then the amount of feed can be estimated.
The weekly produced fodder is about 50 tons, and this is enough to feed flocks of laying hens totaling 50 thousand laying birds or 100 thousand fattening birds, considering the daily amount of feed consumed by the laying hen is 115 g / day or the fattening cycle is 20 tons / 5000 birds / two months.
For commercial fodder production projects, factories whose production capacity is commensurate with the distributed quantities are tested, for example:
A feed factory with a capacity of 10 tons / hour, working in two shifts (two shifts) for five days a week, producing at a daily rate of 115 tons, sufficient to feed one million laying birds or 230 fattening farms with a capacity of 5,000 birds that require 20 tons per cycle. The production capacity of livestock feed factories is also calculated on the basis of needs per head and the number of animals that the factory will supply with feed.
The design of the plant should allow great flexibility in this field, as it must take into account the possibility of expansion after five or ten years to come, and good equipment must be chosen, installed and well maintained, and modern technology and modern development should be taken into account in the operation of feed factories. In the planning stage, it is better to allow some reserve limits in calculating the capacity of the factory and planning on the basis of operating the factory with two shifts for 14 hours a day and for a period of 5 days a week, or 260 days annually, while giving flexibility in the number of operating hours as well as the number of operating days.
The operating capacity of the feed factories is calculated according to the mixing period, the capacity of the mixer, the time required to collect the raw materials inside the mixer, and the time required to empty each mixture. Therefore, there is a tank above the mixer to collect the components of the mixture during the shutdown of the mixer, and a tank below the mixer so that the mixed feed is emptied in one go, for example:
Horizontal mixer with a capacity of 2 tons. The mixing time is 3-4 minutes. One minute is taken into account for filling the mixer and another minute for emptying. The factory capacity is 20 tons / hour.
Storage: Storage
Storage means are auxiliary services for production and the cost of storage is high. Therefore, the use of the capital allocated for this must be taken into account accurately and carefully, and the ability to store the raw materials needed to operate the factory depends on the availability of raw materials and the regularity of their arrival to the feed factory, and the storage capabilities may differ from one raw material to another, and many factories are satisfied with storing easy raw materials Supply, which the factory needs in large quantity, such as yellow corn, which enters at a rate of not less than 60% of the feed weight (for poultry) for a period of two weeks, as well as wheat bran, while storage may be required for a longer period in the case of soybean meal that is imported as well as imported feed concentrates, and factories resort to Storing quantities sufficient for three months, and the storage period may reach more than that when there is difficulty in importing, but it must be taken into account that the price of the raw material, which represents a large financial burden on the feed factory, is an important factor in determining the storage period. The raw materials arrive at the feed factories either in sacks or in bulk (bulk) in trucks designated for that purpose. In the event that they come in sacks, they can be stored with good stacking in roofed warehouses close to the factory’s feed openings with raw materials, provided that the sacks of each raw material are stacked separately from the other. As for the raw materials that arrive at the factory In bulk, it is stored in silos. The space required for storage in silos is calculated on the basis of the density of the raw materials in the form of weight per unit volume. It is known that the grains weigh 0.77 tons per cubic meter, and the impurities weigh 0.55 tons per cubic meter.
The manufactured feed, packed in sacks, can be stacked in a regular manner on (wooden pallets) stacked on top of each other up to four floors by forklift loaders. Stores, including corridors, and a place for the rotation of lorries forklifts, assuming that the wooden bases are stacked to a height of four floors is a ton of food per square meter of floor surface.
When designing the factory, consideration should be given to the presence of a separate store for storing the microcomponents. In hot weather, the store must be provided with cooling and ventilation capabilities. It should also be stored away from moisture, lest these components conglomerate, by placing wooden bases under them, taking into account that the ventilation is good and the stacks are not high with There are enough corridors.
Feed plant equipment:
Reception silos:
Silos in which bulk raw materials are stored or after they are unloaded if they arrive at the factory packed in sacks. The number of silos and the extent of each of them should be sufficient for the factory operation program and the required storage capacity.
The capacity of silos or their storage capacity is calculated in cubic meters or the number of tons that can be stored. The silo has a capacity of 500 tons of grain, its capacity is 650 cubic meters, where the density of grass grains is 0.77 tons / cubic meter, provided that the moisture content of the stored materials does not exceed 12%. It can be absorbed by approximately 10% less than the calculated quantity.
The design of silos differs, as well as the materials from which they are made. The commonly used shapes are round silos with a conical bottom. Their storage capacities vary, and this capacity ranges up to 2500 tons. There are also rectangular silos, which are used when desiring to store large quantities of grass grains. They are always built in the form of a rectangular building. It is divided into a number of chambers and may be equipped with drying facilities. Silos are built outside the factory building and adjacent to it in order to facilitate the withdrawal of raw materials to complete the manufacturing process.
Grains are transported from the input hopper by means of conveyors, the types of which are as follows:
1- Screw Conveyors: Screw Conveyors
It is the easiest and the oldest. The feed runs around an auger from beginning to end. It is placed inside a U-shaped tube and has a movable cover. There are different shapes of these tubes, their lengths and diameters vary, and thus the efficiency of their operation according to the need of the manufacturing stages.
2- Belt Conveyors: Conveyors Belt
Including the surface and with the letter U, and the feed runs on a belt inside the metal frame, and it has a palm High performance in transportation.
3- Chain Conveyors
A chain passes through the tube of these vectors to help pull the feed.
4- Conveyors pneumatic: Conveyors Pneumatic
It is widely used in feed factories, and the feed is transferred due to the difference in air pressure between the entry and exit points.
The feed is raised to the top to be stored in the silo through the Elevators’ drivers, and the simplest thing that can be described is that it is a group of hoppers installed on a circular belt and revolves around two upper and lower rollers inside a tube, taking into account that it has covered openings for inspection and maintenance.
The materials used in the construction of silos differ in terms of their type and quality, and there are international standards for choosing these materials that must be taken into account. Most silos are prefabricated, and galvanized sheet metal is a common material in the manufacture of silos. There are accurate calculations for choosing the thickness and quality of sheet panels. The silo may be made of wood or concrete.
The internal walls of the silos must be smooth and suitable for storing any feed material. Storage problems in silos often arise from high humidity in the stored material, temperature outside the silo, and poor design. One of the most important storage problems in silos is the agglomeration of the feed material inside the silo. Silo stimulants or vibrators are used to facilitate the unloading process. The forms of vibrators differ inside the silo.
It is noted that the base of the silos is pulled at a different angle to facilitate the withdrawal of the stock by means of conveyors. Like the bases of silos, the hoppers receiving openings have inclinations for easy withdrawal of raw materials.
When installing silos, they must be delivered complete with all screws, conveyors, drivers and belts, for the possibility of packing and unloading with the efficiency required by the operation of the factory. The appropriate speed for reception in silos in large feed factories is 60 to 100 tons / hour, and thus large trucks are unloaded in a short time and do not cause factory congestion. With lorries loaded with raw materials, and in this case, the receiving aperture has a capacity of at least 2 tons, and the receiving aperture is covered with a solid iron net to resist crushing in the event that the lorries approached it or the passage of workers. Ores and such threads cause major problems in conveyors and drivers.
The reception opening shall be at a depth of 3 meters completely or partially under the ground and shall be protected from the access of water and groundwater. It shall be covered with a roof which is often a metal frame or a concrete building to protect from weather factors such as rain in winter and sun in summer for workers working at this opening. And the means of filling and unloading silos must work with high efficiency to give a complete and rapid cycle of raw materials, and this is very useful to overcome problems that may cause high humidity in the stored material, which causes a rise in temperature inside the silo.
In large factories, technology should be used to fill and empty the silos by automatic means. This is done from inside the operating room. The silos are provided with conveyors so that the silos of the grinding and mixing department can be supplied inside the factory (panos), after they have passed through the impurities cleaning units and scales. It is noted that they are practical The flow of raw materials inside the conveyors is well calculated for its smoothness and ease of operation of the plant.
Cleaning equipment: Cleaning equipment
This means separating foreign materials from fodder materials, such as metal pieces, stones, straw, strings, wires, hooks, burlap, pieces of wood, and any material that may cause severe damage to conveyors, belts, grinding and mixing equipment, as well as removing harmful seeds and foreign materials such as corn flakes. This is done by passing the fodder materials through sieves And strong magnets attract metallic impurities.
Sieves are chosen according to the size of the particles. For small-sized grains, sieves are chosen for them with a narrower opening capacity than large-sized grains, so that they allow impurities to be retained for each type according to operating conditions. These sieves are installed at the silos’ outlet openings. Thus, the cleaning process begins as soon as the raw materials arrive at the feed factory, and the material must also not enter The raw materials are sent to the mill, unless they pass through these sieves and magnets so that the mill’s forks do not break and the factory breaks down. Magnets may be present in the places of passage of raw materials, mixed fodder, transport and mixing devices in order to ensure raw materials free from any iron pieces, as well as the produced feed. The forms of sieves vary, including brush sieves, which are High-speed sieves, in which the food is spread through a sieve, and the part that is reserved above the sieve is disposed of, and the barrel sieves must work quickly and efficiently to ensure safe operation and prevent malfunctions, and thus the quality of the produced feed.
Grinding
The mill that is used to break grass grains is called the Hammer mill, as it contains beaters or hammers (hammers), and when the mill rotates at a high speed, the grain is exposed to the hammers, and it is fragmented into small particles that pass through the surrounding sieves around the hammers. The grains are separated by friction as well as with the parts of the mill and the hammers before they pass through the exit sieves and the final size of the particle is determined by the amplitude of the used sieve holes. The capacity of the sieve openings shall be determined in metric or English scales as shown in the following table. Fine grinding results from the use of sieves with narrow openings, the capacity of openings up to 2 mm, and coarse grinding, using sieves with a capacity of 3-5 mm.
The mill’s operating rate and selection is determined according to the type of feed materials to be grinded and the mill’s power, which is determined by the factory’s capacity, as well as the diameter of the grinding sieve holes. The time required to grind grain varies, for example barley takes twice as long as grinding corn.
Sieve hole diameters and equivalents:
Large mills are more efficient than small mills, for example a small mill with a capacity of 5 gr
To grind 200-300 kg of corn per hour to pass through a sieve of 1/8 inch (3 mm), meaning that 20 horsepower per ton is required, while the mill has a power of 40 horsepower and is equipped with a good pulling system that grinds about 5 tons of corn to pass its particles through a 3 mm sieve In the sense that 8 horsepower is required per ton, and mills with large power are installed in modern factories. The mill has a power of 75 horsepower and can grind 10 tons per hour to pass through a sieve whose openings are 3 mm. Such a mill can be installed for a factory that produces 10 tons / hour, meaning that 75% of crushed grain is required. Considering that the mill does not work all the time, so it always chooses high-efficiency mills for operation some of the time, and the ground grain is withdrawn to be stored in internal silos (bins) and then withdrawn from it to the mixer. Some factories use two mills in order to avoid the risks of one of them breaking down, and this is better in large and commercial factories. It is noted Always check the mill periodically to note the integrity of the sieves, because any rupture in it means the exit of undivided grains or their particles are larger than required, and this is a major defect in the manufactured feed and causes its rejection by the regulatory authorities and producers. Factories, on the other hand, put the worn hammers on one side and use the healthy side, and so on, until all sides are worn out, so they are replaced with new hammers.
Mixtures of dirt and air in the mill may cause it to explode at times, and to overcome this danger, the exhaust part of the mill must be provided with a device that prevents explosion due to dust, and there should be an integrated system to get rid of dust in the factory.
Attached to the mill are conveyors for supply and withdrawal to the internal silos, which must be located in numbers commensurate with the power of the mill and the number of operating hours. A factory with a capacity of 30 tons / hour requires 8 silos with a capacity of 30 tons each, while a factory of 1 ton / hour requires two silos with a capacity of 10 tons each. The internal silos are called tanks or panos.
When grinding, part of the weight of the grain to be ground is lost due to the loss of dirt and moisture due to evaporation, as the temperature of the ground material rises, and this loss reaches 3% of the weight of the grain. This amendment shall be carried out if desired accurately and honestly, otherwise it would be commercial fraud.
Some factories are determined to pass all the raw materials on their way to the mixer on the mill, while others are grinding only the materials to be grinded, such as yellow corn, while the rest of the soft materials go directly to the mixer. In the second case, the load on the mill is reduced. Homogeneous for all materials.
Mixing section: Blending section
Work begins in the feed factory with the raw materials receiving department, storing it externally in the silos and withdrawing from it to the grinding department and storing it internally in the tanks (panos) designated for it. Then the mixing department begins. This department includes tanks that supply the mixers with components, balancers, mixing equipment, conveyors and unloading tanks from the mixer.
In small feed factories that produce from 1 to 5 tons / hour, the work in some parts of this section is done manually and some through a limited operating panel. raw material by pressing its button on the operation panel and it is pulled to a scale that indicates the required quantity, then the operator lifts his finger from this button to move to another until the mixture is completed according to the composition required to be operated, or this is done without direct intervention from the operator whose role is limited to feeding the information of the program Operation on a computer so that the control process is done automatically and the ingredients are returned in sequence to the mixer after they pass on the scales according to this program.
Mixing tanks: Blinding bins
Mixing tanks (panos) in feed factories differ in their numbers, capacity, and arrangement horizontally and vertically according to the plant installation system and operating capacity. These tanks differ in their capacity according to what they will contain of the fodder materials that make up the feed to be manufactured, and the process of withdrawing from and to it is continuous, and there must be a sufficient number of them and the required capacity. To operate a full day at least, for example: a small feed plant 1-2 tons / hour requires 6 tanks of 5 tons capacity, a feed plant with a capacity of 10 tons / hour requires 10 tanks of 20 tons capacity, and a feed plant with a capacity of 20 tons / hour requires 20 tanks that can be arranged from Where the capacity is 8 tanks of 20 tons for grains, 8 tanks of 15 tons for protein feed materials, and 4 tanks of 10 tons for concentrates and fine ingredients.
Mixing: Mixing
Mixing is the most important process in a good feed mill. Therefore, good equipment and a precise operating system are required. The importance of accuracy in the mixing process is necessary, especially when mixing accurate nutritional ingredients, which are added to the mixture in small quantities estimated at a number of grams per ton. The appropriate degree of spread is 125 parts per million (i.e. less The quantity that can be mixed is 125 g / ton) and it is noted that the accuracy of the weight of the raw materials to be mixed is ensured, and this verification is done periodically, as well as making sure that each mixing is done at the specified time because the short period causes incomplete mixing and irregular distribution of the components, and the long period Mixing too much causes separation and isolation of food ingredients after mixing them. Mixers used in feed factories are of three types: horizontal, vertical, and continuous. The commonly used ones are horizontal and vertical.
A – Horizontal mixers: Horizontal mixers
The capacity of these mixers varies according to the capacity of the factory, and the most common ones have a capacity of 2 tons (155 cubic feet) or 3 tons (215 cubic feet), and they are provided with openings that control air pressure and are suitable for the materials to be mixed to obtain a homogeneous mixture (the rate of difference in which is less than 10%) in a period of less than 5 minutes (3-5 minutes).
Adding liquids to it and it is equipped with a hole through which the supervisor can observe the mixing and the possibility of getting rid of dust and the possibility of filling and emptying completely in one go by air pressure control and usually it is topped with a horizontal tank connected to the scale to collect the ingredients and then it comes down from it in one go to the mixer and after mixing the feed goes down to a tank to collect under the mixer and it is withdrawn The mixture from this tank is conveyed to the filling section. And inside the mixer, there are two screws that rotate in two different directions, right and left, to pull the ingredients from one end to the other in two directions. These mixers are distinguished by the short mixing period and the ability to add liquids at a rate greater than the vertical one.
B – Vertical mixers: Vertical mixers
The internal auger is vertical, and these mixers are commonly used, and few of them have two augers in two directions. They are not expensive and perform good mixing for most ingredients, but they are less efficient in mixing speed. Therefore, they are not used in large feed factories. The mixing time is 15-20 minutes, and the output may not be satisfactory when adding ingredients. Also, liquids cannot be added at a high rate, otherwise they will stick to the walls and thus reduce efficiency.
C – Continuous mixers: Continuous mixers
It operates under the volumetric system. Such mixers are designed to use ingredients that have been previously mixed and are not suitable for use with single compounds. Mixers are used in the non-traditional feed industry, where the cut straw is treated with liquids intended for treatment to raise its nutritional value. The simplest description of these mixers is that the raw materials flow and the auger works continuously and is stirred. By moving the feed from the inlet to the end (mixer trough).
mixing farm
Some farmers may resort to mixing feeds in their farms, and this may encourage them to exploit some of the ingredients produced in their farms in order to reduce the cost, especially if their needs are limited. Balanced feed compositions are used that are easy to operate with a limited number of ingredients. For example, in poultry farms: Fattening feed: maize – soybean meal – concentrates . White diet: maize – soybean meal – wheat bran – limestone – concentrates.
The concentrates contain all the fine components, and it is not recommended to use premix mixtures and the fine components except after drying them by adding a carrier and the used concentrates are pre-mixed.
To do the mixing in the farm, a crushing unit is required, and a small mill with a power of 5 horsepower is used to grind 200-300 kg / hour to a greater force according to the requirements of the farm, as well as a vertical mixing unit with a capacity of 0.5 tons and a set of storage silos and conveyors to reduce manual labor and design these units according to the energy required Its production, the capital used, the labor that can be provided, and its cost, and there are many in such units, but well-made and easy-to-manage materials must be used.
Systems of milling forage manufacturing
There are two main types:
A – Payment System: Batch System
In other words, a full batch of feed with each mixing (1-2 tons according to the capacity of the mixer). The components of each mixture are weighed and collected in the mixer. This ensures a good quality of the resulting feed for the accuracy of weighing and mixing. This is compatible with the addition of small components such as premixes or medicines when mixing the feed. The system gives full opportunity to grind the components to be grinded and enables quick change from producing a specific formula to another, but this system is disadvantaged by the high price of the equipment compared to the volumetric system.
B – Volumetric System: Volumetric System
It is a continuous or volumetric flow system, and it is a low-cost system, as there is no accurate weighing system like the previous one, in the case of supplying metered raw materials on the basis of volume to the grinding and mixing department, and not after weighing each component separately. It is an inflexible system and is more prone to errors, as it depends on the density Feed materials that change according to the components and accuracy ensure the balance of the diet. One of the most important defects of this system is that some components clump inside the tanks, and it looks like a bridge, and the material falls due to gravity. It is long and the quality of the resulting feed is usually lower than that of the batch system. The advantage of using this system is that the equipment is relatively cheap than that of the other system.
Mixing liquids in the food
These liquids are mainly animal fats, vegetable oils, and molasses in liquid form, and they are added at levels of 1-3%.
When the fat arrives, it is stored in large tanks, and to be in a liquid form, its temperature is raised to 40-50 degrees Celsius for the possibility of using it. The fat is added to the mixer directly from the top by means of sprayers specially prepared for this purpose, and a good quality of fat must be used that is not rancid.
And molasses comes out of tanks made of metal or concrete, smooth from the inside, and molasses is like fat. It must be heated when used, and a degree of 40-50 degrees Celsius is considered valid when adding molasses by means of sprinklers to the ingredients while mixing them from the top of the mixer. The liquids are pumped by means of a calibration unit that pumps the necessary volume of liquid for each mixture, which is a pump to push the molasses through a motor with a variable speed box so that the amount to be pumped can be controlled in a short period (one minute).
Boiler: Boiler
There must be a good way in the feed mill to produce water vapor at high pressure, especially when adding molasses or oils and greases as well as when making granules. A water softening unit is required so that the boiler is not coated from the inside with calcium scales. The boiler must be well manufactured and bear twice the required energy. Of which.
Air compressor: Air compressor
Compressed air is very required in feed factories to operate most parts of the plant, especially in the grinding and mixing section and the pneumatic conveyor lines
ors, as well as the process of opening and closing the gates – it is also used in factory cleanliness, and air pressure devices are placed in a separate place in the boiler room, and large factories maintain an additional air pressure unit that is used when necessary.
Electric generator
The feed factory must be equipped with an electric generator of suitable power with the voltage necessary to operate the factory so that the factory can be supplied with electricity in the event of a power failure.
Pellets and crumbs
The fodder is produced in the form of soft mash, in the form of pellets, or in the form of crumbs, and each quality has its advantages. We find that the granules reduce losses such as dust, and they have their own advantage for which they are preferred by breeders, as through them it is possible to obtain a homogeneous diet to the farm and its components do not separate during the transportation process, and each A grain represents a balanced diet, and there is no way for the bird to pick up some of the components of the diet and leave some of them, and the birds accept them with appetite, thus increasing the amount of food consumed, and through it, a homogeneous diet can reach the farm, and its components do not separate during the transport and circulation process due to vibration. It is blamed for the increase in manufacturing costs and the possibility of demolition of some components such as vitamins as a result of heating, which should not exceed 85 degrees Celsius, increased water consumption, wet litter and increased predation. The granules must be cohesive and solid so that they can resist cracking when handling or feeding on them through mechanical equipment. Granules resulting from medium to fine powders with a diameter of no more than 2.5-3 mm are better than those resulting from coarse powders. The steps for producing granules are four:
1. The powder is treated with steam until the powders are moistened and the food is heated to a degree of 60-80 degrees Celsius with a moisture content of 17% for a short time. Since the moisture content of the feed materials is 12%, approximately 5% moisture is added. The conditioning process is called conditioning and exposing the feed to a high temperature for a short time until The nutritional value of the feed is not affected by steam for a long time, which leads to the absorption of the feed to a greater amount of moisture, and this leads to the formation of soft granules. Recent research has shown that adding molasses may be useful as a binder for granules, adding 1-3 to it, and molasses contributes to raising food energy.
2. Pressing the steam treated powder through a mold to convert it into granules. The smaller the size of the granules, the thicker the die and the more solid it is, meaning that there is a relationship between the length of the die hole and its diameter.
3. Cooling the granules by passing a current of air through coolers at the bottom of the granulation machine. This process must be conducted quickly in order to dry the granules and cool them so that they do not get wet and rot.
