Pellet feed is a kind of feed that is made by pressing powdered compound into pellets with a pellet mill. The procedure of making this feed is a mixture of various feeds and various additives prepared in a certain way according to the feeding standards of rabbits, the nutritional value of feed materials, and the quantity and price of feed resources. If the type, quantity and mutual ratio of various nutrients in the compound feed are suitable for the nutritional needs of rabbits, such a compound feed is called a full-price compound feed. If the full-price feed for rabbits is made into pellets using a rabbit pellet mill, it is called pellet feed for rabbits. Rabbit farms can buy pellet feed produced by large feed mills or make their own.
There are two ways to make pellet feed by yourself: by pellet feed machine and by hand.
A pellet machine to make pellet feed approach
1、Mixing
Mixing is an important part of the rabbit pellet feed processing, is the main measure to ensure its quality. Buy professional premix produced by large feed mills or make premixes of micro-added materials. In order to improve the uniformity of trace nutrients in the full-price feed, rabbit farms that produce their own premixes should dilute all raw materials with less than 1% in the finished product. Otherwise, uneven mixing may result in poor animal performance, poor neatness, low feed conversion rate, and even animal death.
The production of additive premix, should be in accordance with the mixture from a small amount of mixing to a small amount of mixing to a large amount of mixing to expand the mixing method step by step.
2、Preparation of raw materials
The closer the main physical properties of the material being mixed, the smaller the tendency to separate, the easier to be mixed, the better the mixing effect, the shorter the time required to achieve uniform mixing. Physical properties mainly include the size of the material, shape, weight, surface roughness, flow characteristics, adhesion, moisture content, fat content, acidity and alkalinity. High moisture content of the material particles are easy to agglomerate or clump, not easy to uniformly disperse, the mixing effect is difficult to be satisfactory, so the general requirement to control the moisture content of the mixed material does not exceed 12%.
The powder particles used in the manufacture of rabbit pellet feed are too large to affect the digestion and absorption of rabbits and too small to cause enteritis. Generally, the diameter of the powder particles is 1 to 2 mm. The particle size of the additives is 0.6 to 0.8 mm, which helps to mix evenly and digest and absorb.
3, the appropriate amount of loading
Mixer mainly relies on convection mixing, diffusion mixing and shear mixing of the three mixing methods to make the material in the machine movement to achieve the purpose of mixing the material evenly, regardless of which type of mixer, the appropriate amount of loading is an important prerequisite for the mixer to work properly and get the desired results. If too much material is loaded, the mixer will be overloaded, more importantly, too much loading will affect the circular movement of the material in the machine process, resulting in a decline in mixing quality; if too little material is loaded, it will not give full play to the efficiency of the mixer, wasting energy, but also not conducive to the flow of materials in the mixer, and affect the quality of mixing.
Various types of feed mixers have their own reasonable filling factor, laboratory and practice has been derived from their respective more reasonable filling factor, which is divided into batches (intermittent) horizontal spiral mixer, the filling factor is generally 0.6 to 0.8 appropriate, the material location should not exceed the top of its rotor plane; batch vertical spiral mixer filling factor is generally controlled at 0.6 to 0.85. Roller mixer for about 0.4; planetary mixer for 0.4 to 0.5; rotating container mixer for 0.3 to 0.5; V-shaped mixer for 0.1 to 0.3; double cone mixer for 0.5 to 0.6. Various continuous mixer filling factor varies, generally controlled at 0.25 to 0.5, do not exceed 0.5.
4, the order of adding materials
The correct order of material addition should be the proportion of the large amount of components added first or most of the machine, and then a small amount and trace components added to it; in a variety of materials, generally large size of the components first added to the mixer, after adding the small size of the components; the relative density of the material between the large differences, generally added to the relative density of small materials first, after adding the relative density of large materials.
For the fixed container mixer, the mixer should be started before adding material to prevent the phenomenon of full load start, and to unload the material before stopping; while the rotating container mixer should be added after the start, first stop, after unloading; for the V-shaped mixer, when adding material should be fed from the two inlets respectively.
5, strict control of mixing time
General horizontal ribbon spiral mixer mix 2-6 minutes per batch, vertical mixer is required to mix 15-20 minutes. Note that the mixing time should not be too short, nor too long. Because the mixing time is too short, the material in the mixer can not be fully mixed will be unloaded, the mixing quality is certainly not guaranteed. However, it is not the longer the mixing time, the better the effect of mixing. Tests have shown that any good mobility, particle size is not uniform materials have a tendency to separate, if the mixing time is too long, the material in the mixer is over-mixed will cause separation, the same impact on quality, and increase energy consumption. Because the mixing process in the material, mixing and separation is carried out at the same time, once the role of mixing and separation to achieve a certain equilibrium, then the degree of mixing that has been determined, even if you continue to mix, can not improve the mixing effect, but will produce separation due to over-mixing.
6, the moisture content of the particles required
To prevent moldy granular feed, moisture should be controlled, less than 14% in the north, less than 12.5% in the south. As salt has a water-absorbing effect, in the pellet feed, its dosage to no more than 0.5% is appropriate. In addition, in the pellet feed also add 1% of the anti-mildew agent calcium propionate, 0.01% to 0.05% of the antioxidant butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) or butylated hydroxyoxybenzene (BHA).
7、Control the appropriate amount of steam
to ensure that the particles have a certain hardness and viscosity, so that the pulverization rate is not higher than 5%.
8、Bagging temperature
The temperature of the pellet material is not higher than the ambient temperature of 7-8℃ when bagging.
9、Specification of pellets
The diameter of the finished pellet feed is 4 to 5 mm and the length is 8 to 10 mm. This specification of pellet feed is very effective in feeding rabbits.
10. Fiber content
The crude fiber contained in the pellet feed should be 12% to 14%.
11. Pay attention to the nutrient loss during processing
Changes in the pelleting process During the pelleting process, the temperature of the feed is raised due to the suppression effect, or the steam is heated up before suppression, so that the feed is under high temperature for too long. High temperature on the crude fiber, starch in the feed some good effects, but on vitamins, antibiotics, synthetic amino acids and other heat-resistant nutrients have a negative impact, therefore, in the formulation of pellet feed should be appropriate to increase the proportion of those nutrients that are not resistant to high temperatures, in order to compensate for the loss of parts.
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