The feather meal production line is mainly for processing various animal feathers into feather meal particles by a series of processes. This new hydrolyzed feather powder machine adopts the hydrolysis method under high temperature, high pressure and strong shear conditions, with advanced process methods and unique equipment. Generally, 10,000kg of feathers can produce 500kg of finished feather powder.

Its outstanding feature is that it completely destroys the spatial structure of feather keratin, thus turning it from food industry waste into high-quality soluble protein feed that can be fully digested and absorbed by livestock and poultry, realizing the transformation of waste into treasure. According to multiple inspections and tests by authoritative departments, its average digestibility and absorption rate can reach more than 75%.

Shuliy new hydrolyzed feather powder machine developed by our company is a new generation product developed based on the advanced technology of Europe and the United States and combined with our company’s more than 20 years of production experience.

So, if interested, welcome to contact us for more machine details!

What is the feather meal?

Feather meal refers to the non-deteriorated feathers obtained after slaughtering livestock and poultry, such as chicken feathers, goose feathers, duck feathers, pigeon feathers, turkey feathers, etc., processed into animal protein feed through modern technology. Feather meal can be divided into enzymatically hydrolyzed feather meal, hydrolyzed feather meal, and puffed feather meal according to the production method.

Feather meal is a commonly used protein feed material, and its crude protein content is not less than 75%. The amino acid content of glycine, serine, and isoleucine is very high, reaching 6.3%, 9.3%, and 5.3% respectively, which is suitable for compounding with raw materials with insufficient isoleucine content (such as blood meal). In many developed countries, 2% to 3% feather meal is used in all livestock and poultry feeds. Therefore, feather meal is one of the important sources of protein in poultry feed.

Machines used in the feather meal production line

The complete set of equipment includes feather water separator, feather water squeezer, feather feeder, belt conveyor loading machine, hydrolysis tank, buffer silo, screw conveyor, steam dryer, rotary cooling screen, crusher, quantitative packaging machine.

It consists of exhaust gas condensation and deodorization system and electric control cabinet.

Item	Picture
Feather feeder
Feather dewatering machine
High temperature canning
Steam dryer
Rotary cooler
Silo

Features and modifications in feather powder machine

• To adapt to the hydrolysis requirements of rapid temperature rise, the heat transfer area is increased. The same model of equipment is increased by about 40%, but the overall size of the equipment is not increased, making the equipment’s footprint the same as the original model.
• In the same way, to increase the heat transfer capacity per unit area, that is, the heat transfer coefficient K is increased, so that the K value increases from about 50–60kcal/㎡℃h to the current about 75kcal/㎡℃h. In the modified equipment, we have adopted many measures such as self-purification of the heating surface, equidistant heating surfaces from the center material to the surrounding heating surfaces, even distribution of the heating surfaces within the body, and intensified stirring.
• To improve the pressure resistance of the equipment, the modified equipment has been improved in many pressure weak links, eliminating or weakening most of the stress concentration areas, and improving the stress condition of the pressure-bearing parts. The main pressure parts are made of high-quality 20g, 16MnR, 20c and other high-quality steel plates for heating and pressure-bearing boiler pressure vessels, which improves the safety and applicability of the equipment.
• To increase the shear force on feathers and their reticular keratin, several measures have been taken in the internal structure of the new feather meal production line. One is to increase the number of stirring blades, the other is to change the shape of the stirring blades, and the third is to use fixed teeth and movable teeth. Some measures such as increasing the relative speed of the interphase structure have greatly improved the shearing conditions.

What aspects indicate the feather meal quality and production efficiency?

• The cystine content of the product is significantly increased, reaching 1.5 times that of acid hydrolyzed feather powder. The digestibility is significantly improved. Under the optimal process conditions, the amino acid digestibility of the product has reached 41-80%, and the product’s gastric enzyme digestibility (PDP), amino acid efficiency (PDAA), protein solubility (PS), amino acid content, Indicators such as bulk density (BD) have been significantly improved.
• Our feather meal production line has the remarkable characteristics of shortened operation auxiliary time, high steam utilization rate and high thermal efficiency. According to actual measurements, it can save about 6% of steam.
• Due to rapid, uniform and stable heating, the product quality is stable.

Quality requirements for hydrolyzed feather meal

Sensory requirements of hydrolyzed feather meal

Project	Index
Traits	Dry powdery form
Color	Light yellow, brown, dark brown, black
Oder	It has the normal smell of hydrolyzed hairy powder and no peculiar smell.

Physical and chemical indicators of hydrolyzed feather meal

Project	Index Level 1; Level 2
Crushing particle size	The standard aperture passing through is not larger than 3mm
Unhydrolyzed feather meal	≤10
Moisture	≤10
Crude fat	≤5
Cystine	≥3
Crude protein	≥80; ≥75
Coarse ash	≤4; ≤6
Sand points	≤2; ≤3
in vitro digestibility	≥80; ≥70

Hygiene index requirements for hydrolyzed feather meal

Salmonella shall not be detected, and the allowable amount of coliforms per hundred grams (MPN/100) is less than 1×10. The allowable amount of arsenic per kilogram is not more than 2 mg.

Applications of feather meal

The feather powder has a uniform texture, looseness and fragrance, good palatability, and fluidity. Feather meal contains about 75%-90% of crude protein, which can make the digestion and absorption rate of protein by animals reach over 85%.

The feed value of feather meal is actually not high, and it is mainly used to supplement the content of thioine in animal feed. However, feather meal has a significant effect on breeding, which is to reduce the phenomenon of anal pecking and feather pecking in chickens and ducks. This is because feather meal is rich in sulfur-containing amino acids.

Feeding feather meals to poultry such as chickens, ducks and other poultry in the spring and autumn molting season is conducive to the growth and development of their down. It should be noted that the amount of feather meal in the poultry diet should not exceed 3% to 5%, and it should be mixed with other protein feeds containing lysine, methionine, and tryptophan. In the feather meal production line, the feathers can be decomposed after pressure and heating treatment, which improves the nutritional value of feather protein and makes feather meal a useful protein resource.