General Introduction to Counterflow Pellet Cooler

The counterflow pellet cooler is applied for efficient cooling of hot and moist pelleted products with good flowing capabilities. Typical applications are for cooling of feed pellets and wood pellets. It can reduce the temperature of pellets from 80~90℃to about 3~5℃ above ambient temperature. And the pellet moisture content is reduced from 17%~18% to 12%~13%. The advantages in energy efficiency, easy operation, great cooling result and lower investment cost have made the counterflow pellets cooler the preferred choice for most users of feed and wood pellets plant.

countercurrent/counterflow pellet cooler

How to Choose a Pellet Cooler for Your Pellet Plant?
The counterflow pellet cooler material discharging device adopts slide valve reciprocating type, it is suitable for pellet materials. Some coolers are with shutter type discharge mechanisms, which are adopting hydraulically powered discharging mechanism. These coolers are suitable for puffed and expanded materials.

What Should be Noticed When Operate the Counterflow Pellet Cooler?
1. Start the air-lock device and draught fan before the cooler starting to work.
2. Adjust the level indicator position according to the yield requirement. When the yield is high, install the level indicator at top position; on the contrary, install it below.
3. When the cooler stops working, expel the material in the cooler through operating the hand switch.
4. Don’t open the observation door when the cooler runs.

Factors Affecting The Feed Pellet Hardness

The hardness of feed pellets directly affects their appearance and production property. So controlling feed pellet hardness is a problem the feed manufactures have to face. The factors affecting the hardness mainly include the feed ingredients grinding process, feed ingredients mixing, water adding and steam modulating process and post curing technology etc.

Feed Pellets Made by Feed Pellet Mill

• The pulverization fineness of feed ingredients plays the decisive role in feed pellets hardness. Generally speaking the finer the particle size the better the starch gelatinization.
• Mixing raw materials can increase the uniformity of feed compositions with all kinds of granularity and ensure the feed pellets have basically identical hardness. 
• Steam modulating effect directly affects the inner structure of feed pellets. Steam quality and modulating time are two main factors affecting the modulating effect. 
• Post curing process can make the inner structure more compact and increase the stability and hardness of pelletized feeds. 
• The technical parameters of pelletizing die such as the aperture and compression ratio significantly affect the hardness of feed pellets.

Why Choose Feed Ribbon Blender When Process Feed Pellets?

Feed ribbon blender is an efficient and versatile blending machine for mixing of dry granules & powders homogeneously. One of the main application of ribbon blender is mixing grain powder with other nutrition in the feed pellet plant. During the blending process, you can add other liquids to the grain powder, making the feed pellets more nutritional. The feed ribbon blender is well suited for preprocessing of feed mixture for making aquaculture, poultry and fish feed pellets.

Feed Ribbon Blender

Why Choose Ribbon Blender In Feed Pellet Plants

1. Ribbon feed blender has outstanding mixing effects for powder & liquid, granule products and fibers, especially for mixing grain powder.

2. This mixing machine will not produce over-heating and pressure-fed results when processing allergic material. The nutrition of grain powder will not be damaged during mixing.

3. As for materials with different proportion and granule size, this feed mixing machine will not lead laying results which totally meet the requirement of feed material mixing of different raw materials.

4. You can add liquid conveniently while mixing.

5. Convective circulation ensures an efficient and homogeneous mixing effect. 

The five aspects mentioned above totally confirm to the feed pellets material mixing standards. So ribbon blender is indispensable mixing machine for feed pellets production, especially for fish, shrimp and other aquatic feed pellets.

How to Control The Feed Pellet Quality During Pelletization

The production property of animal is closely related to the feed pellet quality. Most breeders concern how to correctly use the feed pellet mill to produce the high quality feed pellets. The equipment inspection and maintenance and modulating technology are two main factors.

•  Inspect the wear pattern of ring die and compression roller. The wear of compression roller will affect the production capacity; the undue wear of ring die will decrease its effective thickness and influence the feed pellet quality. 
• Regularly check the crusher roller. The excessive wear of corrugated toothed ring decreases the crushing ability. 
• Examine the cutter of feed pellet mill. The cutter wear will increase the feed powder.
• Inspect the steam separator to ensure the steam quality. 
• Inspect whether there is material backlog and screen surface damage in pellet cooler. 
• Examine the grading screen surface. The clogging and sticking of screen surface will affect the grading effect of feed pellets. 

General Introduction to Diesel Flat Die Feed Pellet Mill

Diesel Feed Flat Die Pellet Mill

Diesel feed flat die pellet mill is designed for small-scale production, particularly for homeowners and small-scale producers to make pellets for animal feed pellets. The diesel flat die pellet mill can run smoothly and with few noises, especially popular in the electricity lacking areas.

Features of Diesel Flat Die Feed Pellet Mill

• Visible chamber design makes the pelleting process clear and visible, so it is convenient to solve problems in time.
• Adopt screw-center adjusting pressure structure which makes flat die pellet mill more practical.
• Driven by a diesel engine makes feed pellets production available in the rural area with shortage supply of electricity.
• Equipped with the clutch and accelerating-decelerating device to change its speed.

Advantages of Extrusion Over Pelleting

• Buoyancy can be controlled, thus floating and slow sinking feeds can be produced.
• For many species extrusion increases carbohydrate availability.
• Extruded feeds are usually capable of carrying higher fat levels than pelleted feed.
• Extruded pellets generally have greater physical integrity and produce less fines.
• Under some circumstances greater water stability can be achieved with extruded feeds.
• Extrusion can aid in the destruction of microorganisms and some other contaminants. 
• Wet materials such as fresh minced fish can be readily incorporated into extruded products. 

Extruders — Dry Cooking or Wet Cooking

• Dry Cooking Extruders

Dry cooking extruders are designed to run without adding any moisture to the ingredients. They are used in processing low moisture, highly expanded feed.

In dry extrusion there is no preconditioning of the ingredients with steam or moisture before entering the extruder barrel. All the heat produced by the dry extrusion process is generated by the mechanical energy applied to the ingredients via the screws, steamlocks and the barrel wall.

These simple dry extruders have since been transformed into more complex pieces of equipment with increasing product flexibility. Longer barrels can now provide increased capacity and cook. Increased selections of screws, steam locks and barrel liners allow high, medium or low shear configurations. Precision metering pumps for water and steam injection to the extruder barrel or to the conditioner provide additional capabilities, such as increased product cook and better shaped extruded products.

Aquafeed Extruder

• Wet Cooking Extruders

Wet cooking extruders are more complex equipment with precision metering systems for steam or water injection into either the conditioner and/or the extruder barrel. Preconditioning is a very important part of the extrusion process. The single most important aspect of the preconditioning system is the potential for additional mixing and the retention time, which is necessary for chemical or physical reactions to take place.

Conditioner types are also varied with a single or double mixing shaft, and may include differential diameter or differential speed conditioning cylinder systems. Preconditioning of ingredients prior to entry into the extruder barrel increases the degree of cook and reduces the wear on internal extruder parts. To increase control of the cooking process, the extruder barrel of a wet extruder is also jacketed for steam or water injection for additional heating or cooling.

Like the dry extruder, the wet extruder has single and/or double flightscrews, 

shearlocks, and heads. However, the wet extrusion system has a greater variety of single and double flight screws. It also has a more complex array of single or double, cut-flight screws and cone head screws, shearlocks and heads for more intricate extruder configurations.

Resource: http://www.aquafeed.com

How to Make Aquafeed with Aquafeed Extruder?

Aquafeed Processing with Aquafeed Extruder

Horse Farming and Feed Pellets

The modern horse industry has received good development in developed countries which becomes the main economic growth point and provides a large number of employment opportunities.

The modern horse owners not only require horses are healthy but also hope they are satisfactory in all respects. This drives horse owners to buy top quality horse feeds which have balanced nutrition and make horse receive sensual satisfaction. Horse feeds’ appearance, texture, flavor and palatability are the main considerations when feeding horses. Doubtlessly feed pellets are the optimal feeds for horses.

Feeding horses with feed pellets is considered from horses’ digestive physiological characteristics. Horses have hard teethes and developed masticatory muscle. So feeds with hard texture and soft surface conform to horses. Horse has fast metabolism and strong servitude thus feeds’ residence time in the stomach is short. Feeds with small size and balanced nutrition are good. Horse’s intestinal tract is uneven in thickness therefore they have bad ability in digesting low-quality coarse feeds. Feed pellets are produced based on the nutrition needs of horse, adopt scientific formula and mix a variety of raw materials evenly according to a certain proportion, then with a series of processing to form the final pellets. So pellet feed owns balanced nutrition content and good palatability for horse farming.

Introduction to Electric Flat Die Feed Pellet Mill

Electric Feed Flat Die Pellet Mill is an ideal pelletizing machine mainly used for small-scale production of animal and poultry feed pellets, grain feed factory, farm, poultry farm . The raw materials are easy to obtain, like corn, maize, wheat bran, rice, beans, etc. Driven by electric motor makes it more energy-saving and environmental friendly.

Electric Flat Die Feed Pellet Mill

Electric Flat Die Feed Pellet Mill Features

• Driven by electric motor makes it more energy-saving and environmentally friendly.
• Made of wear-resistant material, ensure a long service life
• Pelleting process is visible, so it is convenient to solve problems in time.
• Simple structure, small area coverage, easy operation and maintenance. 
• Low consumption, competitive price and cost saving.
• Wide usages for feeding animals like fish, shrimps, chicken, rabbit, pig, etc.

Tips for Sheep Farming

1. The sheep density should not be too spare or too dense.
2. The feeding quantity should be controlled.
3. The water for sheep must be clear and sufficient.
4. The temperature and moisture of sheep pen should be appropriate.
5. The sheep pen should have good environment.

Feed Pellets for Sheep Farming

Five Tips For Pellet Mill Die Maintenance

Die is one of the most quick-wear parts of pellet mills. In order to avoid wasteful spending, it is necessary to know more about pellet mill die maintenance.

By following simple rules as following, your die life will be prolonged and you will realize the greatest production from your dies.

• The die must be secured held by the die clamp at all times.
• Never abuse a die by striking it with a hammer or by dropping it on a hard surface.
• Magnets, scalpers, and other cleaning devices are vital to the life of a die. 
• The die clamp insert should be replaced if it becomes worn.
• The care of the die is similar to that of a rifle bore.