A study was conducted to assess the interactions between grinding, pelleting and broiler performance.
A hard wheat was ground by the use of hammer mill fitted with a 3 or 6.1mmsieve, or to the
same geometric mean diameter by the use of a roller mill. Dry sieving revealed that the amount of
particles smaller than 0.5mm in size and larger than 1.6mm in size was less with the roller mill than
with the hammer mill. When diets containing 573.5 g ground wheat/kg were pelleted, wet sieving
revealed that the proportion of fine particles smaller than 0.2mm in size increased substantially. In
addition, the pelleting process tended to even out differences in particle distribution between diets.
No major differences in power consumption during pelleting were seen for the different diets. A
somewhat poorer pellet quality in terms of breaking strength and resistance to abrasion was observed
for diets made from coarsely ground wheat than for diets made from finely ground wheat. Extent of
gelatinisation, measured by viscosity analysis and differential scanning calorimetry, varied between