With animal feed becoming an increasingly competitive, global market for companies, manufacturers need to do everything they can to increase production line efficiency and quality. One way to ensure animal feed quality is by screening or filtering out off-spec particles through the use of vibrating screeners.
Vibrating screens remove undersized and oversized particles to ensure consistency. They can be used to improve the consistency of raw products at the beginning of a feed process or to ensure the quality and consistency of feed pellets and range cubes just before packaging the product for sale. In this way, screening has become an essential step to improving efficiency and quality in animal feed processing.
Steps in Animal Feed Processing
Whether producing feed for horses, fish, chicken, cattle, pigs, or other livestock, the manufacturing steps are similar.
The basic steps in animal feed processing involve:
- Receiving and cleaning raw materials
- Crushing the material to the requisite size
- Precisely weighing and then mixing the various ingredients
- Conditioning and pelleting the mix
- Pellet cooling
- Screening the pellets to remove brokens and fines (brokens are recycled to milling step)
- Coating the pellets with oil, fat, or other palatants to improve flavor and reduce dust
- Packaging
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Vibratory Screens Used in Feed Processing
The vibrating screens that remove the oversized portions and contamination during animal feed processing are very similar to those used when processing mined ore, and how they operate is the same. Processing feed grains involves similar mechanics, where grains are milled into flour until only coarser material remains on the mesh.
Animal feed processing works the same way, with these vibrating machines capable of working around the clock to efficiently manufacture pellets for animal feed. These sieves fit easily into already existing production lines in animal feed processing plants. Using differing mesh sizes, they can produce a range of sizes tailored to the product.
Prater's Sifting Equipment for Animal Feed
Prater Vibrating Screens are engineered for greater efficiency and reliability. Using an adaptable design, these screens feature elliptical motion for greater particle excitation on the screening surface, adjustable amplitude, and customizable grade. This assures animal feed production lines operate at the highest levels of efficiency.
