Animal feed pellet prodn. - from hydrothermally pre-treated animal feed meal with pellet precolingprecooling by ingoing meal

In the production of animal feed pellets from a low grade meal mixture by withdrawing the meal from a storage vessel, subjecting it to a hydrothermal treatment, then compressing it to form feed pellets, which are thereafter cooled and sieved to separate them from uncompressed meal and abrasion fines and transported to a store or discharge conveyor while the meal and abrasion fines are recycled for recompression, the improvement being (a) directly after formation the pellets are mixed with the feed meal to be compressed, and are held in this state of close contact for a pre-determined time sufficient for giving up their heat content and a proportion of their moisture to the feed meal, as a result of which the pellets are pre-cooled and the feed meal pre-treated in the sense of a decomposition and (b) thereafter the meal and abrasion fines are first sieved off and then the tretment of the feed meal and the complete cooling of the pellets is carried out. Method permits a complte decomposition of the feed meal components i.e. to decompose the starch, for improving the digestibility for animals in known manner, together with improved thermal economy and a more compact and less costly plant. Much less breakage and abrasion of the pellets takes place.