Executive Summary
A poultry feed manufacturer in Serbia’s Vojvodina province replaced an aging ribbon mixer with Hongyang’s SHSJ2000 double shaft paddle mixer in Q2 2025. Within three production cycles, mixing uniformity improved from CV 12–18% to CV ≤ 4.2%, downstream pellet durability rose to 96.8% PDI, and annual output nearly doubled to 15,000 tons — all while cross-contamination risk was eliminated.
Background
Serbia’s poultry sector has been on a sustained growth trajectory. According to the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (SORS), total poultry meat production reached 141,000 tons in 2024, representing a 10.2% year-on-year increase. Livestock growth in the poultry segment expanded by 8.8% in the same period, while egg production recorded a 3.4% rise. The Serbian poultry feed market has mirrored this expansion, with feed imports growing 25.48% from 2023 to 2024 (6Wresearch, 2026), reflecting strong domestic demand that local mills are racing to meet.
The customer — a mid-size integrated layer operation headquartered in Vojvodina, Serbia’s agricultural heartland — runs a 120,000-bird layer farm and an on-site feed mill producing approximately 8,200 tons of feed annually. Their product mix spans layer mash, crumble, and 3–4 mm pelleted feed for three distinct laying phases (grower, pre-lay, peak-lay). The mill sources locally grown corn and soybeans from Vojvodina’s fertile plains, supplemented by imported soybean meal, limestone, and vitamin premixes.
For over a decade, the mill relied on a single-shaft ribbon mixer as its core blending unit. While the ribbon mixer had served adequately during the farm’s early years, the combination of rising output targets, stricter nutrient uniformity requirements for modern layer genetics, and increasing micro-ingredient complexity had pushed the equipment beyond its effective operating window.
The Challenge
As the layer operation scaled from 80,000 to 120,000 birds between 2022 and 2024, three interrelated problems surfaced:
1. Inconsistent nutrient distribution in layer rations. Calcium, phosphorus, and trace mineral premixes — critical for shell quality, bone integrity, and sustained egg production — were not dispersing uniformly. Periodic lab assays from the Serbian Institute for Animal Husbandry showed calcium content varying by ±18% across samples from the same batch. This translated directly to field results: shell breakage rates climbed to 6.2%, well above the 3–4% industry benchmark for commercial layers.
2. Extended mixing cycles limiting throughput. The ribbon mixer required 180–240 seconds per batch to approach marginal uniformity, and even then CV values hovered between 12% and 18%. At peak production periods, the mill ran 14–16 hours per day, leaving zero buffer for maintenance or unexpected downtime.
3. Carryover contamination between formulations. With a residual rate of 2.5–4.0%, traces of the previous batch’s medication or coccidiostat would bleed into the next mix. This was especially problematic when switching between medicated grower rations and withdrawal-phase pre-lay rations, creating regulatory and food-safety exposure.
The mill manager summarized the situation bluntly: We were blending longer, getting inconsistent results, and still falling short on volume. The mixer had become the bottleneck for the entire operation.
Hongyang’s Solution
After an on-site audit conducted by Hongyang’s technical team in early 2025, the recommendation was clear: replace the ribbon mixer with a SHSJ2000 double shaft paddle mixer, sized for 2,000 kg batch capacity and integrated into the existing mill layout with minimal structural modification.
Three design features proved decisive for this application:
Twin counter-rotating paddle geometry. Unlike single-shaft ribbon designs that rely on convective blending alone, the SHSJ2000′s overlapping twin shafts generate simultaneous convective and shear mixing. Each paddle row is independently adjustable for pitch angle, allowing the mill’s nutritionist to fine-tune mixing intensity for specific formulations — gentler for crumble pre-mixes, more aggressive for mineral-heavy peak-lay rations. This flexibility alone addressed the calcium dispersion problem.
Full-length drop-bottom discharge with ≤ 0.1% residual. Traditional side-discharge or partial-bottom designs trap 2–5% of material in dead zones. The SHSJ2000′s full-length pneumatic discharge door opens along the entire mixer trough bottom, emptying the chamber in under 8 seconds. Cross-contamination between medicated and non-medicated batches was eliminated — a critical compliance requirement under EU-aligned Serbian feed safety regulations.
Helical gear drive with direct shaft coupling. By eliminating chain or belt intermediaries, the gear-driven system delivers consistent torque to both shafts regardless of load. During testing, the SHSJ2000 maintained stable current draw (±2%) even at full 2,000 kg batches with high-moisture ingredients (up to 14% moisture), where the previous ribbon mixer’s belt drive would slip, causing rpm fluctuations and inconsistent mixing.
Installation was completed over a four-day shutdown in March 2025. Hongyang’s commissioning engineer conducted three days of on-site training for mill operators, covering batch parameter programming, paddle angle adjustment, and daily maintenance routines.
Results
Mixing uniformity translated directly to pellet quality. The improved homogeneity of the mash entering the conditioner meant that steam and moisture were absorbed more evenly across every particle. This reduced the occurrence of dry spots that typically cause pellet fractures. While the pellet mill (an existing Hongyang HYPM508 ring die pellet mill, installed in 2023) was unchanged, PDI jumped from 87–90% to a consistent 96.8%, as verified by the Holmen durability tester at the mill’s quality lab.
Layer performance improved measurably. Six months after the mixer upgrade, the farm’s production data showed shell breakage rates dropping from 6.2% to 3.1%. The farm’s nutritionist attributed this to the elimination of calcium stratification within the feed — a direct consequence of the mixer’s CV ≤ 4.2% performance. Feed conversion ratio (FCR) improved from 2.18 to 2.09 over the same period, though this also reflected concurrent improvements in housing ventilation.
Throughput unlocked scale. With batch cycle times cut to 45–60 seconds and daily runtime reduced from 14–16 hours to 8–10 hours, the mill had capacity to take on toll-milling for two neighboring layer farms, adding approximately 3,500 tons of annual volume and a new revenue stream.
Customer Feedback
The Hongyang double shaft mixer has transformed how we think about feed quality, said the mill’s production manager during a follow-up visit in November 2025. Before, we accepted CV values of 12–15% as normal. Now we see 4.2% as the upper limit. The chickens tell the difference — shell quality is visibly better, and we’re spending less on calcium supplements because the feed itself is consistent. Installation went smoothly, the training was thorough, and after six months, we’ve had zero unplanned downtime on the mixer. That reliability is worth as much to us as the performance numbers.
Conclusion
The Vojvodina case illustrates a principle that applies across all feed milling operations: the mixer is not merely a blending vessel — it is the quality gatekeeper for the entire pelletizing line. Inconsistent mixing cascades downstream, undermining pellet durability, nutrient delivery, and ultimately animal performance.
Hongyang’s SHSJ series double shaft paddle mixer addresses this at the root, with twin-shaft paddle geometry achieving CV ≤ 5% across batch sizes from 500 to 5,000 kg. The full-length drop-bottom discharge eliminates cross-contamination, and the helical gear drive ensures torque stability under variable loads — features that translate directly to measurable ROI for layer operations, as the Vojvodina mill’s 78% throughput increase and 50% reduction in shell breakage demonstrate.
For feed mills in Central and Eastern Europe navigating rising output demands and tightening EU feed-safety standards, the combination of mixing precision, throughput scalability, and low residual design makes the SHSJ series a pragmatic, high-return investment.
Post time: Jun-19-2026
