Evaluation of pelleting diets to broilers

Abstract

The processing of diets means change the structure of an ingredient in natural state to achieve the maximum potential nutrition, to improve the performance of animals. The more processing plants used in animal feed are the expansion, extrusion, and mainly the pelleting. The process of pellet is an agglomeration of particles ground of an ingredient or a mixture of ingredients, through mechanical processes in combination with humidity, pressure and heat, occurring any changes in the structure of food. Among the key processes operated by industry, the pelleting is the most used. Literature reviews shows, the main benefits of pelleting are to improve the digestibility of nutrients, increasing the feed intake, decreasing the use energy of maintenance, reduce the waste of feed for poultry and reduce contamination by microorganisms in the diet. The disadvantages are involved mainly with the high cost of equipments, increase use of electrical energy, carcasses more fat and increase mortality. However, a badly pelleting or badly managed by the factory as far as poultry houses, can cause to damage to the increase in the concentration of disaggregate particles (fines). When there is a concentration of fines high, the benefits of pelleting are equalized with relation the mashed diets, making the process of pelleting infeasible.