In most animal species the use of pelleted feed ensures uniformity of nutrient supply and reduced wastage during transport and feeding.

“Pelleted feeds provide an easy to ingest, concentrated nutrient source that have been through a heating cycle and will therefore have a significantly reduced bacterial count,” says Kiotechagil’s chief technical officer Murray Hyden. “The heat of processing also assists with digestibility by pre-gelatinising starches and activating in-feed enzymes.”

Pellet quality is however subject to many factors including ration formulation, grist size and stream quality. And, as it is extremely difficult to optimise all these points there is a strong recommendation for feedmillers to use a top quality pellet binder. Many pellet binders require high volume additions and lead to nutrient dilution of the feed resulting in the need to reformulate with more expensive nutrients, low inclusion binders are therefore seen to be preferable.

MASTERCUBE from Kiotechagil is a low inclusion binder that provides an immediate binding of the nutrients to give excellent pellet durability during pressing and cooling operations. This improved durability reduces returns and saves energy. This binder even acts as a lubricant in the die increasing mill throughput and reducing wear and tear. And, as it also contains a pellet hardener this ensures that pellets are not crushed during transport and feeding operations whilst providing additional calcium to the diet formulation.