ISSUE FOCUS 30 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE March 2026 During any anti-microbial addition, it is important to monitor the moisture in real-time to add the agent at the most appropriate rate to avoid over-dosing. 2. When drying, it is important to precisely achieve the target moisture as under-drying creates obvious problems with mould growth and spoilage, and over-drying wastes energy and increases the amount of breakage due to brittle grains. This can, in turn, lead to dust accumulation and rodent infestation. Moisture sensors can be used in the dryer inlet and outlet flows to measure the material flow in real-time to allow the process temperature, exhaust fans, and residence time to be controlled. 3. During reduction processes, in the hammer or roller mills, the moisture in the raw material affects the size and shape of the ground material. In a hammer mill, higher moisture material absorbs the energy of the hammer, so instead of shattering cleanly, it flattens or tears. In a roller mill, higher moisture grain does not shear properly so, instead of a clean cut, the material gets mashed. At the opposite end of the moisture range, grain that is too dry can crack too easily and cause excess dust, and the moisture can affect capacity and energy consumption of the mill and can cause increases in heat generation. To get the correct moisture levels, it may be necessary to have a further drying step or (in drier climates) to have a water addition or conditioning step before the reduction operation. 4. To create the mix of materials for the formulation, the different ground ingredients are then batched into a weigh hopper to get a consistent mix. While each ingredient is being weighed, it is important to measure and compensate for the weight of the water in the material as 1000kg of grain at 10% moisture (by wet weight) is only 900kg of dry material and 100kg of water. After the material has been batched, it is then necessary to mix the ingredients together and add water to get the mix moisture to the required target level for the final processes. It is also important to adjust the addition of mycotoxin binders for the feed mix moisture level, to avoid wasting these expensive additives. For a pellet mill or extruder, steam is usually injected, which conditions the mash and raises the temperature, activating the starch, which helps the pellet to hold together. If the mash moisture level is incorrect, then there can be issues with the formation and stability of the pellets – pellets that are too dry tend to crack and break whereas if the mash is too wet then this can cause problems with feed plugging the holes in the die. In extreme circumstances, this can even lead to the die pressure increasing to a point where the die is cracked, needing costly repair and downtime. 5. After the mill, the feed pellets are then allowed to cool before going to storage and/or final product packing. It is important to measure the moisture Raw material intake to silos Materials Delivered Packaging / Storage Silos Extruder Pelletiser Conditioner Mill Dryer Cooler 1 2 3 Weigh Hoppers 4 Mixer 5 6 7
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