Influence of Particle Size Distribution before and After Grinding on Quality of Pelleting (Oat and Barley) in Chitwan

This experiments was carried out at National Cattle Research Program Rampur chitwan command area feed industry. In this study there were four types feed samples were used to making of pellet feed test quality of the pellet durability, hardness, and moisture content of the oat and barley based feed. Results showed that pellet durability test in Feed 1 shows the better Pellet Durability Index (PDI) 79% with the hammer mill screen size 3 mm compare to other Feed 2, Feed 3 and Feed 4 with 61.83%, 44.16% and 53.5% in screen size 6, 3 and 6mm respectively. This may indicate that Barley beta-glucan increase solubility and thus increase viscosity after pelleting compare to oat based feed. So it would be better for the use of barley based feed in screen size of 3mm. The pellet hardness test results is better in the Feed 1 with 50% of barley and 30 % of oat because the binding capacity of barley is more to compare with oat. Similarly, the Feed sample 4 also showed good hardness as it contained 20% barley, 30 % whole Barley but with only 30% oat. From the experimental results and data, it can be concluded that different screen sizes of Hammer mill affect the Particle size distribution of oat and barley in the pellet quality.