The Journey of a Hay Pellet: An Overview of the Pelleting Process

Pelleted horse feed is a complete and nutritionally sound way to feed your horse, but have you ever wondered what each pellet goes through before it ends up in your barn? Here is a quick overview of the pelleting process and a look at how each blade of grass or alfalfa leaf is transformed into the perfect little pellet in your horse’s feeder.

  • The hay is grown and prepared for the pelleting mill. The quality of the grass or alfalfa that goes into your horse’s feed is important, so Sacate inspects every field for quality. When the field is ready, the hay is cut and dried. Instead of being baled it is cut into tiny pieces with a field chopper.
  • The chopped hay is prepared for the pelleting process. Upon arriving at the factory, the chopped hay is inspected, tested for nutritional content, and mixed with water, a binding agent, and nutritional supplements to achieve the guaranteed nutritional content. The resulting mixture must be malleable so that it can be formed into pellets, and also stable enough once hardened to maintain their shape during shipping and storage.
  • The hay mixture is pelleted and cooled. Once the hay is ready, the mixture is fed through a machine that forms it into the perfect pellets you see when you open up a bag of Sacate pelleted feed. Before the pellets are ready to bag, however, they must first go through the cooler, as they are hot from the pelleting process. The cooler also dries them, so that they won’t spoil during storage.

Starting with the care the hay farmer takes with his fields and ending with the quality guarantee of Sacate, your horse’s pellets have been on quite a journey. For more information about our pelleted feed or to find an authorized dealer, please contact Sacate.