Alapala is one of the global leaders in machinery production and turnkey solution provider since 1954. With its 1.000+ references in 4 continents over 120 countries and expertise in integrated plants for the grain, feed, and pasta processing industries, Alapala aims to be one of the leaders of the feed milling industry with its focus on research and development on feed milling technologies with Alapala Feed Tech brand.The feed milling process is challenging. Some parameters should be handled meticulously to produce high-quality nutritious animal feed. 


FEED TECHNOLOGIES MANAGER

The feed milling industry has a few main concerns: contamination, plant accuracy & safety, flexibility & high productivity, heating treatment & hygienization, and traceability. And these concerns are solved by the technology behind the feed milling processes.

Let us have a look into the Grinding and Dosing process:

Horizontal-type hammer mills are generally used to reduce particle sizes into predetermined sizes in feed, food, and chemical industries.

There are two concepts used for the feed milling application; The pre-grinding process to pre-determine the particle size of ingredients individually before the proportioning process and the post-grinding process to determine the particle size of mixed ingredients after the proportioning process.

Grinding is one of the key processes in a feed mill and also the second largest energy consumer in a feed mill. Selection of the appropriate size of Hammer mill and its accessories and efficient operation of the hammer mill is extremely important; such as number of hammers, screen hole size, rotor rpm, main drive power, mill screening area, feeder capacity, required air volume for the aspiration unit and capacity of its downstream conveying equipment.

Apart from this, the performance of a hammer mill is dependent on the chemical and physical properties of the ingredients such as humidity, fat, and edge width.

Grinding the ingredients ensures; High level of homogeneity of mixed ingredients including liquids, vitamins & minerals in the mixer, and better and more effective thermal treatment in the conditioner and hygienizer to produce quality feeds as expected by nutritionists to ensure safe and healthy growth of poultry and ruminant animals on account of maximum benefits to our society.

All ingredients are individually stored in the proportioning bins/silos in their grounded or natural form. According to the nutritionist’s proposed recipe, the ingredients are weighed one by one in a sequence batch-wise either on the volumetric or gravimetric way of dosing.

Factors affecting the process are; the selection of the dosing element & its accuracy, the high-end plant automation system to control the dosing elements, the selection of scale, and the selection of load cell & its accuracy.