Importance of Conditioning in Poultry Pellet feed
Importance /Benefits of Conditioning:
• Conditioning Temperature and retention time can affect the feed production, pellet quality and subsequently the performance of bird. So, therefore the conditioning is an important process in feed pelleting. When mash feed passes through conditioning chamber, it is exposed to steam. This steam contains heat and moisture required for starch gelatinisation, adhesion of particles and to kill the pathogens in mash feed before pelleting.
• Steam Temperature & Retention Time are two important factors in conditioning which may hamper the pellet quality. Pellet quality is measured in terms of PDI (Pellet Durability Index) and Hardness of pellet. Benefit of conditioning the mash feed before pelleting is of special interest in young birds as they have undeveloped enzymatic system so, need to provide highly digestible nutrients to them.
Importance of Moisture Optimization:
• Moisture management in feed is a key from an economic and feed quality point of view. Hence, it is required to adopt the moisture optimiser to reduce the cost of feed, to save the power consumption, to reduce the nutrient loss during pelleting, to ensure the smooth production by lowering the chances of blockages in die and subsequently increases the life of die, to minimise the process loss, to minimise fine percentage & to reduce the storage loss at go down, in a feed mill while producing feed.
• More is the moisture in bound form in compounded feed, more it can assist cooking and conditioning, providing also better machine efficiency (higher throughput at lower energy consumption), pellet quality and feeding value.
• Addition of (1-2%) pure water is practised by many feed producers but this water cant be bound with feed matrix. Hence, it simply covers the feed surface and creates the additional free water. Among these free water, some is evaporated during processing while remaining water acts as a substrate for mould and bacterial growth.
Importance of Emulsification:
• In early stage of life in chickens, ability of lipid digestion is very poor.
• Emulsification is the first step in fat digestion which occurs in small intestine. So, need to add the emulsifier to enhance the digestion and absorption of fat/oil in their diet.
• Emulsifiers breakdown the larger fat globule into smaller fat droplets to increase the surface area of fat globule for better action of fat digestive enzymes like lipase.
• Emulsifier helps in extraction of energy as much as possible from the fat/oil added in chicken
Pelledur (Intas – Biochem) addresses most of challenges:
- As surfactant an emulsifier having HLB Value-15
- Acts as a antimicrobial emulsifier and thereby improves gut health
- Increases the length of villi for better absorption
- Ensured solution for Moisture Optimization
- Along with emulsifier acts as a Mould Inhibitor
- Increases the efficacy of pellet mill by reducing the friction
- Improves the die life
- Reduces the electricity consumption
- Improves the throughput
- Reduces the fines
- Improves the pellet quality
- Reduces the process loss
- Increases the shelf life of feed for longer storage in feed go down
Dr.Himanshu Kumar
AGM(Sales&Marketing)-Poultry, Intas Pharmaceutical.
