Feed-Processing Plant

a machine that prepares nutritionally adequate feed for farm animals. In the USSR feed-processing plants are common for preparing mixed feeds and combined silage and feed for hogs. The units are installed at large specialized farms, at feed lots, and in the feed preparation shops of kolkhozes and sovkhozes. In foreign countries mainly mixed-feed processing plants are used.

Mixed-feed processing plants are designed to crush grain feeds, cake, hay, and mineral and protein-vitamin supplements into fine or rough meal and to prepare feed mixes with the required proportions of components from crushed products. In the AMK-2 plant, bulk feeds pass through a crusher and into the compartments of a hopper. The prepared components pass into metering devices and then into mixing units. Various additives are also introduced. After mixing, the finished mixed feed is unloaded into feed distributors or means of transportation. The plant has level-sensing devices with signal lights that show the level to which the hoppers are filled and the removal of products from them. The output of the AMK-2 plant is 1.6 tons per hr for crushing and 2.4 tons per hr for mixing. The plant is driven by electric motors. Other mixed-feed processing plants are similar to the AMK-2 in design and principle of operation. In the higher-output OKTs-15 and OKTs-30 plants (15 and 30 tons of product per shift), which are installed in mixed-feed shops at farms, control of the production process is completely automated.

The APK-10 combined-silage plant performs the following operations in sequence: washing the roots and tubers in a vegetable washer, crushing them and feeding the bulk greens into the unit, mixing the feeds in the crusher-mixer, and feeding the finished mixture into silage pits and trenches. The output of the plant is 10-12 tons per hr. It is driven by an electric motor or the power take-off shaft of a tractor.

Hog farms have KN-3 feed-processing plants, which prepare nutritious feeds for hogs. Potatoes move along a conveyor to the plant’s potato washer, from which they pass into the steam-cooking vat, and after that to a pulper, where a metering device also supplies other feeds (concentrates and liquid, mineral, and protein supplements). After mixing in the pulper, the finished feed passes into feed distributors. The output of the plant is 2.0-2.5 tons per hr. It is driven by an electric motor. The KN-3 feed-processing plant is combined with a steam boiler and conveyor to load potatoes into the potato washer.