Breaking behaviour and interactions in maize and soybean meal while grinding of a hammer mill

The objective of the present study was to investigate whether mixing ratio of maize and soybean meal (SBM) affects the breaking behaviour during hammer-milling in terms of the nutrient properties and in vitro digestibility of fractionated particles. Mixtures of maize and SBM with different proportions (% Maize:SBM; 0:100, 25:75, 50:50, 75:25, 100:0) were hammer milled using a 2-mm screen. The obtained powder was sieved into seven fractions with size ranges from 0.149 to 1.190 mm. Results show that energy consumption of grinding mixtures increased from 3.8 to 48.4 kJ/kg with the maize proportion increasing from zero to 100%. Mixing proportion of maize and SBM showed significant effects on nutrient content of fractionated material. For hammer milled material