How to make dry dog food by food extruder (2)

You might have wondered why your dogs are developing gum diseases at an alarming rate! Well, the cause has been identified! According to a preliminary research, canned foods have higher chances of causing gum diseases among pets than dried ones. Dried pet foods are manufactured using the latest sophisticated technology of food extrusion. 

Once you have a pet food extruder, learning how it works is simple and easy to follow. To help you grasp the process, below are the stages through which pet foods are produced via food extrusion. Latest pet food extruders are automated and require less manpower; most of the processes are handled by the machine. 

Mix the ingredients. Depending on the type of food to be manufactured, you can mix the ingredients to form moist dough. For dogs, you should select ingredients such as meat, sea food, soybean meal and poultry among others. You may grind dry ingredients before mixing with wet ones.  

Heating. Once you have the ingredients mixed, heat the dough in the preconditioner before introducing in the extruder.

Primary cooking. Here, the moist dough is cooked under high temperature and pressure as it is passed to the open end of the extruder. Moist dough dries out in the process of intense heating and hot dough is delivered at the end of the extruder into a shaping die and knife where small pieces expand rapidly into kibble as soon as they come into contact with standard air pressure. 

Drying of the kibbles. At this section, the moisture content of the kibble is lowered up to 10-15%. Low moisture increases the shelf life of your dog`s food. 

Cooling phase. The heating process at the oven produces a lot of heat which should be lowered by cooling.

Coating. Some pet food extruders are designed with a device that sprays on a coating of flavor enhancers.

Packaging. You can package the kibbles into pouches, bags, boxes and etc. depending on your choices and preferences after weighing them according to the label indicated on the packages. 

Sterilizing. You can sterilize the dog foods by heating or passing through a retort chamber at a temperature of 121ºC for 1 hour then cooled ready for distribution. 

Why prefer dry dog foods?

The difference between dry pet foods and moist pet foods is outstanding. Dry pet foods are manufactured through an elaborate process that lowers the moisture content enough to increase the shelf life to over twice that of of moist pet foods. Apart from reducing the shelf life of the product, wet pet foods may also grow fungal and bacterial microorganisms which lower the quality of the product. If you are shopping for your pets, you shouldn’t be much concerned about spoilage from high moisture content due to purchasing a large stock.

Many times, moist pet foods have to be preserved using chemical binders and other chemical components. These chemicals may affect the taste of pet products. If you want to keep your dogs healthy and well taken care off, you always buy them dry pet products instead of moist ones.