Feed processing technology can be simply summarized as: raw material receiving and cleaning, crushing, batching, mixing, forming, measuring and packaging. Required feed processing equipments are: hammer mill, mixer, pellet mill, packaging scale. Feed processing technology looks pretty simple, but there are still many practical and complex problems in actual production.

Raw material receiving and cleaning is the first process to ensure the quality of feed. The installation of receiving equipment and process should ensure the safe storage of raw material, and the cleaning equipment should be reasonably assembled in the process of receiving. If impurities in raw materials cannot be cleaned up in advance, it will affect the product quality, even affect the growth of animals, damage equipment in the process and affect production. Usually, the method of raw materials’ cleaning is screening first and magnetic separation afterwards, supplemented by dust suction facilities. In the process of raw material treatment, in addition to strengthening the impurity removal method, another big change is to preprocess the raw materials, which has two functions: removing bad factors in raw materials and improving the nutritional potency of active ingredients in raw materials.

Crushing process is one of the main processes in feed processing. Crushing quality directly affects comprehensive costs like the quality, output and power consumption of feed production, and affects the inherent quality of feed and feeding effect. Choosing the corresponding mesh to control the pellets size for hammer mill. The main factors affecting the performance of hammer mill are: physical properties of raw materials; the feeding system, the rotor turning and feeding direction; sieve aperture selection; the selection of hammer crusher; the negative pressure suction.

Batching is the core part of feed processing technology; the correct formula is guaranteed by batching process. The change of batching system is mainly to adapt to the increasing of varieties added, reducing of the adding amount, improving of the weighing accuracy, shortening the weighing cycle, and improving the production per unit time meanwhile.

The key of mixing process is how to ensure the mixing uniformity. Three main aspects are considered: mixing time, mixer gate and prevent classifying after mixing. The mixing time is usually designed according to the batching time of the balance and the time recommended by the mixer manufacturer. The mixer is divided into two types: big door structure and small door structure. The mixer with big door structure discharges fast, and no residue will be produced. But there will be leakage due to lax closure, affecting the quality of mixed materials, which should be paid attention to. In order to reduce the material classifying after mixing, the conveying distance should be shortened after mixing unloading, especially the pneumatic conveying method is not allowed, and the speed of material entering the warehouse should not be too fast.

The traditional pelleting process includes: pelleting, cooling, crushing, classifying. First, control the quality of feed conditioning, namely the control of temperature, time, and moisture adding and starch gelatinization degree, to ensure the tempering state is the best suited to pelleting. Second, control powder rate of particle feed, cooling temperature and moisture, particle uniformity, water-resistance. To achieve these requirements, reasonable steam supply, control system and conditioning, pelleting, cooling, screening equipment must be equipped, and the parameters should be scientifically adjusted and controlled according to different requirements of products.

In the process of measurement and packaging, it is necessary to choose the right packaging materials, to achieve accurate packaging measurement, and to match the correct product description.