Pellets: advantages, equipment, temperature, and when it is not worth it

This lesson is part of Making feed on the farm, expert level specialisation. It opens to every registered student, from free registration. Levels 1 to 5 and the tracks remain readable by everyone.

All commercial broiler feeds come as crumbs or pellets, and many farmers who make their own mash wonder whether they are losing something. The honest answer is: yes, a little, and it can be put in figures; but pelleting also costs, in machines, energy, steam, time, and it can damage what is most fragile in the formula. This lesson explains what a pellet is, how it is made (conditioner, press, cooler, crumbler), why temperature is the setting that decides everything, how a pellet is checked on the farm, and above all how you calculate, with your own figures, whether the workshop should equip itself or stay with well-made mash.

• ✓Explain the three presentations of a feed (mash, crumbs, pellets) and what pelleting really brings to the broiler, in figures
• ✓Describe the pelleting chain (conditioner, press, cooler, crumbler, sieve) and the temperature and moisture settings that govern it
• ✓Check a pellet on the farm: durability, hardness, moisture, temperature, diameter
• ✓Decide, through a complete calculation, whether pelleting is worth it for a given workshop, and recognise the cases where it is not

1. Mash, crumbs, pellets: what the chicken gains
2. The pelleting chain: from conditioner to sieve
3. Temperature: the setting that decides everything
4. Checking a pellet on the farm
5. The calculation: what pelleting brings, what it costs
6. The traps of pelleting
7. Going further

• •Mash, crumbs (1.5 to 2.5 mm, starter), pellets (3 mm grower, 3.5 to 4 mm finisher); pelleting brings the broiler less sorting, 3 to 5% less waste, 2 to 5 points of FCR, better hygiene, less dust, more density; little interest in the layer (mash).
• •Chain: conditioner (steam, 70 to 85 °C, 15.5 to 17% moisture), press (die, 80 to 90 °C), cooler (ambient + 5 °C, ≤ 12.5%), crumbler, sieve; small flat-die presses without steam: less durable pellet, for finisher on 1 to 2 t/d.
• •Temperature: < 65 °C crumbly pellet and no hygiene; 70 to 85 °C the good pellet; > 90 °C vitamins, enzymes and lysine damaged → premix for pellets, heat-stable enzymes or after cooling.
• •Checks: durability (500 g, 10 min, 2 mm sieve, ≥ 90%; 462 g = 92.4%), hardness (snaps cleanly), moisture and temperature at the cooler, fines in the bag (≤ 5 to 8%, crumbs ≤ 10%); the mash keeps its level 11 checks before the press.
• •Decision by calculation: gain ≈ 527 kg of feed per flock of 2,000 (288 of waste + 239 of FCR) against energy (20 to 30 kWh/t), steam, hours, wear, premix, depreciation, rejects; in general yes above 2 to 3 t/d or for sales, no below 1 t/d, for layers, without stable electricity or with a mash still badly made.