PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A MILLING MACHINE FOR PRODUCING BROILER PELLET CRUMBLES

Abstract

The goal of this study is evaluating some operating parameters affecting performance of a roller mill and the particle size distribution during producing broiler crumbled feeds (CF) from poultry pellets for the phase of starter. These pellets were manufactured from standard formulation including ingredients with percentages that recommended to the broiler starter. The performance of the milling machine was evaluated under operational variables including; four different roller rotational speeds of 350, 400, 466.67 and 560 rpm corresponding to 2.75, 3.14, 3.66 and 4.40 m/s, three roll clearances of 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5 mm ,three feeding rates of 1.3, 4.1 and 6.8 Mg/h. The performance of the machine was evaluated taking into consideration the machine capacity, particle size distribution of the CF, and energy requirement. The obtained results reveal that, it is recommended to use the roller mill at roll speed of 466.67 rpm (3.66 m/s), feeding rate of 6.80 Mg/h and roll clearance of 1.50 mm to achieve the best CF particle size distribution (˂1 mm= 19.45%, ˃1 mm= 29.46%, ˃2mm= 38.64% and ˃3 mm=12.45 %) that suit the broiler in the phase of starter at machine capacity of 5.650 Mg/h and consumed energy of about 0.476 kW.h/Mg.