Pellet Production 101

Pelleted horse and cattle feed has been used on farms for almost forty years. Many cattle and horse owners have found that pelleting is and easier way to feed horses. Food pellets are easier to handle, dispense and store than bulky bales of hay, bagged corn, oats and sweet feed. With pelleted food, you just measure out the recommended amount of feed with no fuss or hay dust to tickle your sinuses.

How is this possible? Pelleting. Pelleting is the process by which pellet mills take hay and other foods you would feed your livestock and compress it into a single, nutritionally balanced pellet.

Feed Pellet Production

The use of quality ingredients is the start of the pelleting process. At Sacate Pellet Mills in Arizona we begin with local and Californian grown and sun cured Alfalfa and Bermuda hay. This hay is carefully monitored while being grown and harvested, long before it ever even makes it to our pellet mill. Once the hay reaches the mill, the bales are cut and mixed while they await the grinding process.

Next, the hay is put into a hammer mill where it is ground and transferred to the top of the mill where it is mixed with other ingredients. The ground hay in our pellets is put into a large mixer where molasses, corn, steam and the other ingredients, based on the type of pellet being produced, are added to the mix, and blended.

Once this is finished, the mixture is transferred into a pellet die, a large, bowl-like apparatus full of 3/8 inch holes. The mix is moved into this die where heat, moisture and extreme pressure force the mix through the holes, forming the pellets. Then, the pellets are allowed to cool dusted and packaged in bags, ready to send to distributors.

Less Mess – Better Nutrition

Dealing with cumbersome bales of hay can be difficult and the amount of waste is costly making pelleted food for livestock a great option. The use of pelleted feed reduces the amount of storage space required for animal feed by compressing all of the necessary nutrients into a single, easy to dispense pellet. Easier for you, better for your livestock, Sacate Pellet Mills is sure to have a feed pellet blend that will work for you.

For more information, call the livestock professionals at Sacate Pellet Mills today!