Overview
This U.S. industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing animal food (except dog and cat) from ingredients, such as grains, oilseed mill products, and meat products.
The NAICS industry code for Other Animal Food Manufacturing is 311119. Included in this industry are:
Alfalfa meal, dehydrated, manufacturing
Alfalfa prepared as feed for animals
Alfalfa, cubed, manufacturing
Animal feed mills (except dog and cat) manufacturing
Animal feeds, prepared (except dog and cat), manufacturing
Barley feed, chopped, crushed or ground, manufacturing
Bird feed, prepared, manufacturing
Blending animal feed
Bone meal prepared as feed for animals and fowls
Cattle feeds, supplements, concentrates, and premixes, manufacturing
Chicken feeds, prepared, manufacturing
Citrus pulp, cattle feed, manufacturing
Complete feed, livestock, manufacturing
Custom milling of animal feed
Dairy cattle feeds supplements, concentrates, and premixes, manufacturing
Earthworm food and bedding manufacturing
Feed concentrates, animal, manufacturing
Feed premixes, animal, manufacturing
Feed supplements, animal (except cat, dog), manufacturing
Feeds, prepared, for animals (except cat, dog) manufacturing
Feeds, specialty (e.g., guinea pig, mice, mink), manufacturing
Fish food for feeding fish manufacturing
Grain grinding, custom, for animal feed
Grain mills, animal feed
Hay, cubed, manufacturing
Kelp meal and pellets, animal feed manufacturing
Laboratory animal feed manufacturing
Livestock feeds, supplements, concentrates and premixes, manufacturing
Meal, alfalfa, manufacturing
Meal, bone, prepared as feed for animals and fowls, manufacturing
Micro and macro premixes, livestock, manufacturing
Mineral feed supplements (except cat, dog) manufacturing
Mineral supplements, animal (except cat, dog), manufacturing
Mobile feed mill
Pet food (except cat, dog) manufacturing
Poultry feeds, supplements, and concentrates manufacturing
Rabbit food manufacturing
Shell crushing and grinding for animal feed
Shell crushing for feed
Swine feed, complete, manufacturing
Swine feed, supplements, concentrates, and premixes, manufacturing
Turkey feeds, prepared, manufacturing
This classification covers establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing prepared feeds, feed ingredients, and adjuncts for animals and fowls, except dogs and cats. Included in this industry are poultry and livestock feed and feed ingredients such as alfalfa meal, feed supplements, and feed concentrates and pre-mixes. Also included are establishments primarily engaged in slaughtering animals for animal feed.
Feed is by far the largest input cost of producing food and fiber of animal origin, exceeding even the initial cost of the animals themselves. The cost of feed represents 50 to 70 percent of the cost of producing meat, milk, and eggs at the farm level. For instance, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) calculates that it requires 88 pounds of feed to produce 100 pounds of milk; 9,523 pounds of feed to produce a steer; 1,273 pounds to produce a lamb; 50 pounds of feed for 100 eggs; 261 pounds of feed to produce 100 pounds of poultry; and 629 pounds of feed for 100 pounds of pork. In the case of grass-eating livestock such as cattle and sheep, a great deal of their nutrition may come from foraging pasture land, but the latter stages of their lives often require significant portions of prepared feeds. With poultry and hogs, however, nourishment is supplied primarily through prepared feed mixes.
According to the American Feed Industry Association, as much as $20 billion worth of feed ingredients are purchased each year. These products range from grain mixes to orange rinds to beet pulps. The feed industry is one of the most competitive businesses in the agricultural sector and is by far the largest purchaser of U.S. corn, feed grains, and soybean meal. Tens of thousands of farmers with feed mills on their own farms are able to compete with huge conglomerates with national distribution. Feed crops generated $23.2 billion in cash receipts on U.S. farms in 2001. At the same time, farmers spent a total of $24.5 billion on feed that year.
More information at www.answers.com/topic/prepared-feeds-and-feed-ingredients-for-animals-and-fowls-except-dogs-and-cats
Major Processes
Processes description of a feed pellet mill
In automated mills, ingredients were automatically weighed out of storage, according to the formulation being used for that batch.
A smaller feedmill would usually have a simple weighing, mixing and production system. More typical of larger, more automated mills was a complex blending and mixing system with several production units.
In a simple system, one batch of about a tonne was mixed at a time. A few of the main cereal ingredients, held ready-ground in bulk bins, were drawn onto a conveyor and into the mixer. Any medicinal additives were incorporated at this stage (for more on medicinal additives, see the section below on cross-contamination). If the feed was to be sold as a meal, it would now be diverted to storage. Otherwise, steam was added to the meal mixture to raise its temperature (a procedure known as ‘conditioning’) before the material was forced through a ring roll press to form ‘pellets’, which varied in diameter from 2.5 to 20 mm. The moist, hot pellets were then passed through a cooler to reduce their temperature, also causing them to harden. If some of the production was to be sold in bulk, the sieved pellets or mixed meal went to holding bins. However, in small mills of this type it was not usual for much of the feed to be delivered in bulk, in which case it was bagged.
In a more complex mixing system, typical of a high-volume mill, there were groups of bins for cereals, proteins and possibly minerals. These bins discharged their contents in discrete batches of one to four tonnes through separate, computerised weighers to a collecting and elevating system. The material then passed through a hammer mill, which reduced the particles to a size which allowed them to pass through a screen from which they were conveyed to the batch mixer. This was usually a ‘three-tier’ mixer consisting of:
- holding bin above the mixer;
- the mixer itself; and
- a discharge/holding bin below the mixer.
At this stage the vitamins, trace materials and other low inclusion ingredients (such as medicinal additives) were normally added in a premix directly into the mixer. Some oils and other liquid materials could also be added at this stage. After a mixing period of three to four minutes, the batch was transferred as a meal to bulk storage ready for bagging or bulk delivery, or to conditioning and conversion into pellets. A high-capacity mill of this type probably produced a large proportion of its output as pellets or cubes, and as much as 90 per cent of its output was delivered in bulk.
Source: http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/report/volume13/chaptee3.htm 5/2007
Major Equipment
Natural Gas Technologies