Round Hay Bale Processing Line for Pellet Production — Commissioning Underway in Canada

Commissioning is currently underway for a 4.5 t/h round hay bale pellet production line at a facility in Alberta, Canada, where the equipment will process locally grown timothy and brome grass hay — common forage species in the region — into pelletized livestock feed product for distribution to cattle operations across the prairie region.

Round bales are the predominant baling format for hay in much of western Canada, given the scale of operations and the mechanized handling round bales allow for compared to square bales — this influenced the bale-breaker selection for the line, using a round bale unroller/breaker design suited to the large round bales (often 1,200-1,500 lb per bale) typical of the region's haying operations.

The processing chain: round bale breaker, hammer mill, hay pellet machine (ring die, 8mm pellets), and cooler — a relatively straightforward configuration, similar in concept to the square bale line for the Australia project but with the different bale-handling equipment at the front end suited to round bale format.

Commissioning this week has focused primarily on the bale breaker and its integration with the hammer mill's feed rate — round bale breakers can produce somewhat uneven material flow depending on how evenly the bale breaks apart (denser or looser sections within a single bale can come apart at different rates), and the commissioning process involves adjusting the conveyor and feed system between the breaker and hammer mill to smooth out this flow variability, avoiding either starving the hammer mill (reducing throughput) or overloading it (which can cause motor overload trips).

The buyer's hay supply for initial commissioning testing includes bales from several different fields with somewhat different hay quality and moisture levels (ranging from about 10% to 16% moisture across the test bales) — useful for commissioning purposes, actually, since it gives RICHI's commissioning engineer a chance to verify the line handles this kind of natural variability in incoming material rather than only testing against a single, ideal-condition bale.

Commissioning is expected to continue for another few days before the buyer begins regular production operations, with the pellet product destined for sale to regional cattle feed distributors ahead of the upcoming winter feeding season — timing that has added some schedule pressure to the commissioning process, though so far progress has tracked reasonably close to the buyer's target timeline.