Alfalfa Pellet Production Line

Alfalfa pellet production lines are usually set up to make feed for cattle and sheep. Apart from small farms and a few other cases, alfalfa mostly comes in compacted bales. Because they’re large, you need to break them down first with a bale breaker – cut the twine and loosen the material, so it’s easier to handle.

Clean alfalfa usually needs to be crushed into grass powder using a grinder. This is because if the raw material is too coarse, it will cause the pellets to be loose and unformed during granulation, and the ash content of the produced pellets will be relatively high when used as fuel for combustion.

After the alfalfa is crushed to a certain extent, it cannot be directly granulated. A drying section is needed. If the humidity of the alfalfa is too high, the final pellets will not be able to be shaped properly, and they will mold after a few days. However, if it is too dry, the produced pellets will be prone to become loose and break easily upon impact. It is best to control the moisture content of the alfalfa powder at 13%-18%. Our drying machine can precisely adjust the moisture content of the raw materials.

To turn alfalfa into ruminant feed pellets, you usually need to condition it first. The dried alfalfa goes into the pellet mill’s conditioner, where paddles and steam work together to cook and gelatinize the material thoroughly. Then, with the help of a double‑roller anti‑bridging feeder and a forced feeder, the material moves smoothly into the pelleting chamber. There, the rollers squeeze it firmly, and it comes out through the ring die holes. Finally, a cutter chops the extruded strands into the length you want, with all pellets the same size.

After coming out of the pellet mill, the alfalfa pellets are usually quite hot because of the steam used during conditioning. You can’t bag them right away for storage – they could even catch fire. So we place a cooler right after the pelleting stage in our alfalfa pellet production line. It brings the pellet temperature down to room temperature quickly. Once they cool and harden, they’re much easier to store and transport.

During cooling, some broken pieces and fine powder may form, and they don’t look great. So we run the pellets through a screener. It removes all the damaged pellets and fine dust, leaving only whole, uniform pellets. When the pellets look consistent and clean, they’re more appealing to buyers – and that helps you sell them more easily.

Finally, the alfalfa pellets move to the packaging stage. Our packaging scale weighs, fills, and seals the bags according to the weight you set – for example, 15 kg or 25 kg per bag. It ensures almost zero weight variation from bag to bag, and the seals are completely airtight. This step replaces the old labor‑intensive way of bagging by hand, so it cuts down your labor costs significantly. Once the packaging is done, you can store the pellets or sell them right away.