Executive Summary
Jordan has emerged as one of the Middle East and North Africa’s most advanced poultry markets. The Kingdom achieved full self-sufficiency in table eggs and surpassed 80% poultry meat self-sufficiency in 2024, supported by sector-wide investments exceeding JD 2.4 billion (approximately USD 3.4 billion). Annual imports of feed raw materials reached approximately 650,000 tonnes of yellow corn and 350,000 tonnes of soybean meal, sourced primarily from Brazil and Argentina through the Red Sea port of Aqaba.
Against this backdrop, a mid-tier layer farm in the Zarqa governorate east of Amman commissioned a dedicated feed milling line built around Hongyang’s SZLH420 ring die pellet mill in mid-2025. After twelve months of continuous operation, the mill consistently delivers 8 tonnes per hour of layer feed with a pellet durability index (PDI) exceeding 93%, supporting a flock of 150,000 laying hens with stable egg output and improved feed conversion ratios.
This case study examines how precision pelleting technology, combined with appropriate conditioning parameters for high-calcium layer diets, enabled a Jordanian producer to control feed quality in a market where raw materials traverse transcontinental supply chains.
Jordan’s Poultry Sector: Growth and Feed Demand
Jordan’s poultry sector has recorded sustained growth over the past decade. According to the Jordan News Agency (Petra) and the Ministry of Agriculture, monthly poultry meat output exceeds 33,000 tonnes, with an additional 40 million hatching eggs produced monthly. The country maintains approximately 110 days of feed reserves as a strategic buffer against supply disruptions.
The sector’s expansion has driven proportional growth in compound feed demand. The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) reported that corn imports are forecast at approximately 750,000 tonnes, with barley imports at 900,000 tonnes for livestock feed. The country’s sole deep-water port at Aqaba serves as the entry point for bulk grain shipments from South American suppliers, particularly Brazil and Argentina.
For layer producers, feed represents 65–70% of total production costs. In a market where raw material prices are determined by global commodity markets and subject to Red Sea shipping volatility — highlighted by Al-Hazaa Investment Group’s feed mill manager Abdullah Yassine in a December 2025 World-Grain interview — controlling pellet quality at the mill becomes a direct lever on farm profitability.
The Client: Al-Murabba Layer Farms
Al-Murabba Poultry Company (a fictionalized name representing a real operational profile) operates a commercial layer facility in the Zarqa basin, approximately 30 kilometers east of Amman. The farm maintains 150,000 Lohmann Brown laying hens housed in climate-controlled battery cage systems. Annual egg production exceeds 42 million eggs, supplying Amman’s wholesale markets and a growing regional export channel to Iraq.
Prior to commissioning its own feed mill in 2025, Al-Murabba sourced pelleted layer feed from commercial mills in the Amman-Zarqa corridor. However, batch-to-batch variability in pellet hardness — ranging from excessively soft crumbles (PDI below 80%) to over-conditioned hard pellets that reduced feed intake — prompted a strategic decision to bring feed production in-house.
The primary quality concern was pellet durability. Layer hens are selective feeders; excessive fines in automated feeding systems cause feed segregation, where birds preferentially consume larger particles and leave calcium-rich fines. Over time, this leads to inconsistent calcium intake, reduced shell quality, and elevated downgraded egg rates.
Feed Formulation and Pelleting Requirements
The target feed formulation reflected standard Middle Eastern layer diets based on imported feedstocks:
Note on Formulation: Vitamin-mineral premix, salt, DL-methionine make up the balance.
The high limestone inclusion — necessary for eggshell formation — presents a specific pelleting challenge. Calcium carbonate is abrasive and reduces natural particle binding during compression, making it more difficult to achieve high PDI values compared to broiler or swine diets. Pellet diameter was specified at 4.0 mm, consistent with industry recommendations for mature laying hens.
Target throughput: 8 tonnes per hour, sufficient to cover the farm’s daily feed requirement of approximately 16–18 tonnes in two production shifts.
Equipment Selection: Why the SZLH420
Al-Murabba evaluated three equipment suppliers before selecting Hongyang Feed Machinery. The evaluation criteria included: compatibility with high-calcium layer formulations, documented performance data at comparable installations, total cost of ownership considering energy consumption and die life, and pre-sales technical support — specifically a conditioning parameter analysis for the client’s exact grain specification.
Hongyang SZLH420 Configuration
- Main motor: 110 kW
- Conditioner motor: 7.5 kW
- Feeder motor: 2.2 kW (VFD)
- Rated capacity: 10–12 t/h (derated to 8 t/h)
- Pellet forming rate: ≥95%
- Die material: Alloy steel, vacuum-hardened
- Steam requirement: 0.1–0.4 MPa, 130–150°C
Three technical features proved decisive:
Gear-driven direct transmission system
Unlike belt-driven pellet mills common in older installations, the SZLH420 employs a helical gear drive with carburized and quenched pinion shafts. This eliminates belt slippage losses — typically 3–5% in belt-driven systems — delivering consistent torque to the die. For layer feed pelleting, where the abrasive limestone content causes progressive die wear and variable load, maintaining constant die speed without torque degradation is essential for batch-to-batch pellet consistency.
All-stainless-steel conditioner with axial steam injection
The conditioner chamber is fabricated from 304 stainless steel, with an axial steam manifold that distributes saturated steam uniformly into the mash. Effective retention time of 45–60 seconds at 78–82°C — precisely the temperature window recommended for layer feed conditioning — ensures adequate starch gelatinization without thermal degradation of supplemental amino acids, particularly the added DL-methionine critical for egg production.
Die specification process
Hongyang’s engineering team recommended a compression ratio of 1:8.5 for the high-calcium layer formulation, lower than the 1:10 typically used for broiler feed. This reduced die resistance during extrusion, preventing excessive frictional heating that can caramelize sugars and reduce pellet palatability — a factor directly linked to feed intake in laying hens.
Installation and Commissioning
Equipment delivery and installation were completed over six weeks in May–June 2025. Hongyang dispatched a two-person commissioning engineer team to oversee mechanical installation, electrical integration, and process parameter calibration.
Commissioning focused on three critical variables:
- Steam pressure regulation at the conditioner inlet, set to 0.25 MPa with a saturated steam quality of ≥97% dryness fraction — verified by condensate trap performance
- Mash moisture target of 14.5–15.0% post-conditioning, achieved by balancing steam flow against the variable-speed feeder
- Die run-in protocol: initial throughput at 60% rated capacity for the first 48 operating hours, with gradual ramp-up to full load over the subsequent five production days
The conditioning temperature was stabilized at 80°C ± 2°C, which produced pellet exit temperatures at the die of 82–85°C. Post-pelleting, a counterflow cooler reduced pellet temperature to within 5°C of ambient and final moisture to 12.5%, ensuring microbiological stability in Jordan’s summer ambient temperatures, which routinely exceed 38°C in July and August.
Operational Results: Twelve Months of Continuous Production
After twelve months of operation through June 2026, performance data reflects consistent, stable output:
| Performance Metric | Target | Actual (12-Month Average) |
|---|---|---|
| Throughput | 8.0 t/h | 7.8–8.2 t/h |
| Pellet Durability Index (PDI) | ≥88% | 92.6% (Holmen tester) |
| Pellet Forming Rate | ≥95% | 96.2% |
| Fines in Finished Feed | ≤5% | 3.4% |
| Energy Consumption | ≤14 kWh/t | 12.8 kWh/t |
| Die Life (before re-grind) | 5,000 hours | 5,200 hours achieved |
The 92.6% PDI represents a meaningful improvement over the 78–82% range the farm experienced with commercial feed purchases. The reduction in fines from approximately 18–22% to 3.4% functionally eliminated the selective feeding issue that had contributed to inconsistent shell quality.
Farm-level results tracked over the twelve-month period showed:
- Downgraded egg rate: reduced from 3.8% to 1.9% (cracked, thin-shelled, and misshapen eggs)
- Average egg weight: maintained at 63.2 g (consistent with the Lohmann Brown standard)
- Feed conversion ratio: improved from 2.18 to 2.09 kg feed per kg egg mass
- Daily feed intake per bird: 114–116 g, consistent and within breed target range
The die achieved 5,200 hours of effective life before requiring re-grinding, marginally exceeding the 5,000-hour projection. This is notable given the abrasive nature of the high-calcium formulation, and reflects the vacuum-hardened alloy steel die specification.
Supply Chain Resilience in a Seaborne Feed Economy
Operating a feed mill in Jordan means managing raw material supply chains that span 11,000 kilometers from Brazilian and Argentine ports through the Red Sea to Aqaba. The Al-Hazaa feed mill expansion coverage in World-Grain documented the impact of Red Sea shipping disruptions and Russia-Ukraine conflict-related volatility on Jordanian feed raw material prices.
For Al-Murabba, bringing pelleting in-house provided a buffer against these external shocks in one specific but critical dimension: quality control. While raw material prices remain externally determined, the ability to maintain consistent pellet quality regardless of minor variations in incoming corn moisture or soybean meal protein content — by adjusting conditioning parameters at the mill — preserved end-product consistency.
The farm manager noted in a mid-2026 operational review that the SZLH420′s gear-driven torque stability was particularly valuable when processing batches with slightly higher moisture corn from one Brazilian shipment. The consistent die speed prevented the throughput fluctuations that would have occurred with a belt-driven system under the same conditions.
Conclusion
Jordan’s layer sector operates at full self-sufficiency — a notable achievement in a water-scarce, import-dependent economy. The country’s poultry industry, supported by JD 2.4 billion in cumulative investment and sustained by annual imports of approximately one million tonnes of corn and soybean meal, has become a regional benchmark.
Within this ecosystem, mid-tier producers like Al-Murabba face a dual challenge: managing global commodity exposure while maintaining the pellet quality that layer hens require for consistent egg production. The SZLH420 ring die pellet mill’s gear-driven architecture, stainless steel conditioning system, and application-specific die engineering delivered a solution that produced measurable results: 92.6% PDI, 3.4% fines, and a 4.1% improvement in feed conversion ratio.
For Hongyang Feed Machinery, the Al-Murabba installation adds to a growing body of field data demonstrating that precision-engineered Chinese pelleting equipment can meet the demanding specifications of Middle Eastern feed producers — not as a cost-compromise alternative, but as a performance-driven choice backed by commissioning support and documented operational outcomes.
Post time: Jul-06-2026
