Poultry feed mill project.
For integrators, cooperatives and independent feed manufacturers planning a new feed mill or capacity expansion. Covers when on-farm vs commercial capacity is appropriate, process design, indicative CAPEX bands, timeline and financing.
Project assumptions
Engineering scope
- Grain intake pit with dust filter and magnetic separator
- Cleaning + sieving before storage
- Silo cluster sized for 15–30 days of grain autonomy
- Hammer-mill or roller-mill grinding section
- Mixer with liquid dosing (fat, molasses, enzymes)
- Pelleting line: conditioner + pellet press + cooler + crumbler
- Bagging or bulk loadout
Equipment & indicative CAPEX bands
Vendor-neutral bands from published market references. FeedMatch Group does not invent supplier quotations — final pricing comes from manufacturers via the RFQ.
Pit, drag conveyor, sieve, magnet, dust filter.
Grain silos (raw & finished), ingredient bins.
Hammer or roller mill, sieves, auto-feeder.
Load cells, batch tower, horizontal mixer, liquid dosing.
Conditioner, pellet press (75–500 kW), cooler, crumbler.
Auto-bagging line, stitcher, or bulk truck loadout.
PLC, SCADA, batching software, weighbridge integration.
Dust filters, explosion venting, sprinklers.
Utilities & climate control
- Grid feed sized to pellet press + grinder peak load
- Diesel genset for critical process shutdown (not full load)
- Steam boiler for pellet conditioning (0.4–0.6 t steam / t feed)
- Compressed air for pneumatic valves and bagging
- Water for boiler make-up and washdown
- Grain storage < 14% moisture — ambient with aeration in temperate zones
- Silo aeration and temperature monitoring in hot / humid climates
- MCC room air-conditioned to 25 °C
- Pellet cooler discharge < 5 °C above ambient
Power & water requirements
- Peak load: 250 kW (2 tph mill) to 2.5 MW (60 tph mill)
- Pellet press is the largest single motor (75–500 kW)
- Grid connection sized 25% above peak for start-up
- Soft-start or VFD on pellet press mandatory
- Boiler make-up: 0.5–1.0 m³ / h at 30 tph
- Washdown circuit for mixer and pellet line
- Recycled cooling water on chiller loop where used
Budget bands
Bands exclude land, working capital and financing fees. Add country-specific duties. Subject to final RFQ pricing.
ROI framing
Illustrative ranges only. Actual ROI depends on local feed / egg / meat prices, offtake contracts and financing structure. Model your own case with the calculators below.
- Bird capacity
- Cost per bird (USD)
- Country cost factor
- Directional Class-4 estimate — expected scenario only. Open the full tool for conservative and optimistic ranges.
- Prices, feed costs and FCR use vendor-neutral defaults; override with your local market data.
- Excludes financing costs, taxes, land purchase and one-off site development.
Quick Project CAPEX
Expected scenarioClass-4 CAPEX range from bird capacity and location. Open the full tool for regional breakdown and assumptions.
Results
- Base CAPEX
- $1.80M
- Per bird (effective)
- $18.0
- Range (±30%)
- $1.26M – $2.34M
Class-4 directional estimate for scoping. Bankable modelling needs local input prices and supplier quotes — use the RFQ Builder.
Calculators for this project
Model the specific engineering and financial questions this project needs to answer, using existing FeedMatch calculators. No duplicate pages — each link opens the tool already built for this scope.
- Bird capacity or hens placed
- Target live weight or HDP (layer)
- FCR and feed cost (USD/kg)
- Farm-gate price (meat) or egg price
- Total investment (CAPEX) and country factor
- Cycle length and cycles per year
- Vendor-neutral engineering references — not supplier quotations.
- Class-4 accuracy (±30%) suitable for feasibility and RFQ scoping, not final financing.
- USD-denominated; excludes local taxes, duties and financing costs unless the specific tool models them.
- Climate, biosecurity and grid assumptions default to a typical commercial site — adjust for your country.
Main cost drivers
- Capacity (tph) and number of pellet lines
- Silo capacity — days of grain autonomy
- Automation depth — manual batching vs full SCADA
- Bagging vs bulk loadout
- Country grain-handling and dust-safety codes
Construction timeline
Supplier matching
FeedMatch Group matches your project brief against a curated network of vetted poultry equipment manufacturers — European, American, Turkish and Chinese lines — and returns comparative RFQ responses on matched specifications.
Financing
Qualified commercial projects can be introduced to an independent third-party financing provider — equipment leasing, ECA-backed export finance and DFI structures. Any financing is subject to third-party approval and is not guaranteed.
Explore financing pathsTurn this plan into a real RFQ
Use the RFQ Builder to receive comparative quotes from vetted manufacturers, plus a 5-year TCO model and — if you qualify — a financing introduction.
FAQ
When is a captive feed mill worth building?
Pelleted or mash?
What are the common planning mistakes?
Can this project be financed?
How long from contract to first batch?
Common planning mistakes
Recurring pitfalls we see in commercial poultry projects worldwide. Address them at the design stage — not after equipment is on site.
- Sizing equipment to peak flock only, ignoring downtime, cleanout and future expansion.
- Under-specifying ventilation for local climate extremes — heat stress destroys FCR faster than any feed decision.
- Treating biosecurity as fencing and footbaths instead of an integrated zoning, water and personnel plan.
- Choosing suppliers on unit price rather than 5-year TCO (spares, energy, service response, warranty).
- No backup power sizing for climate control — a single grid outage in hot weather can wipe out a flock.
- Skipping a formal RFQ and comparative bid analysis — leads to non-comparable quotes and disputed change orders.
- Underestimating civil works, land preparation, water treatment and access roads in the CAPEX budget.
- Overlooking waste and wastewater compliance until commissioning — a common cause of permit delays.
Part of the Global B2B Group ecosystem
FeedMatch Group is the poultry vertical of Global B2B Group — an independent procurement ecosystem covering adjacent industrial food-chain projects. Cold-chain, aquaculture and grain / seed programmes frequently share buyer, financing and logistics structures with poultry.