Shrimp Feed Formulation and Manufacturing Process

The quality of shrimp feed determines the development of shrimp grounds. Shrimp feed cost accounts for about 50% of the overall cost in shrimp fishery! High-quality shrimp feed is characterized by good water stability, good hygienic control on raw materials for optimum FCR and health of prawn, good attractability and feed palatability, and rich in nutrition to produce healthy and strong prawns. In recent years, pond-reared shrimp develops rapidly. While farmers know little about the shrimp feed production and feeding method. Some of them don’t care about what kind of shrimp feed they are feeding their prawn, while others take no notice of the dose rate, thereby increasing shrimp feed costs increasing, production efficiency reducing. Shrimp feed pellets should be formulated to meet the shrimp’s nutritional requirements of essential amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and moulting accelerating substances. To solve those problems, Fanway Fish Feed Machinery introduces some shrimp feed formulas, and hope they will help farmers earn more profits.

The raw material grinding is a basic process, particle size should be above 40-60 mesh. In addition, the fine material can improve the mixing uniformity of ingredients and the compaction quality of pellet feed, and it is easy for digestive enzymes to contact with feed to promote digestion. Grinding raw material needs two processes, the first is coarse grinding, like peanut cake and shrimp head capsule. Fish Feed Hammer Mill is needed.

The raw materials must be cleaned up before crushing, cleaning our debris, such as paper, wood, stones and others. Before the second process, the ingredient, like peanut oil-cake powder, fish meal, spray-dried blood cells, squid powder, should be mixed in accordance with the proportion of ingredients, then crushed into more than 40 mesh powder, then stir well with the standard flour and additive-the coefficient of variation is not more than 10%.

After being crushed, the moisture content of raw materials is 13%, which makes it not easy to soften up and gelatinize, so it is an important condition to add appropriate amount of water to ensure powder bonding and starch gelatinization. Fish Feed Extruder is used to manufacture delicious and nutritional shrimp feed pellets.

The particles come from the host having high moisture content, need to be dried, the most commonly fish feed pellet drying equipment is net Mesh-belt type fish feed dryer. 

Shrimp feed pellet cooling is usually in the Counter-flow type fish feed cooler, in this progress cool air will take away some hot energy and water, pellet can be packaged when they stay at room temperature. If pellet take cooling progress without drying, a large number of small cracks will appear on the surface and extends to the deep due to the internal of pellet have rapid cooling and dewatering, even good gelatinization fines will also have the phenomenon.

After granulating, drying and cooling, unfinished products should be screened by classifying screener. Powder and pieces are filtered out from the bottom of machine. Large particles and residue are screened from the top of this machine. Finished materials are packaged in feed column from interlayer. Shrimp feed is classified into four types from juvenile prawn to adult shrimp. Since nutritional ingredient is different, there are different feed size and length. Little shrimp needs feed 0.3-1.5mm in diameter; prawn, 2mm; adult shrimp, 2.7mm. With the growth of little shrimp, the length of granules increases to a few centimetres.

Taking Penaeus Orientalis for example, the feed is stored and fed in shrimp ponds along the coast, easy to be affected by damp because of the humid coastal air, so penaeus orientalis feed pellets must be packaged by paper and plastic syntactic bags. Weight of per package is better to be 20 kg or 25 kg, which is beneficial to transport.