Materials and Methods
A number of factors impact the micron size of ground corn and they are: type of grinder, screen size and condition, number and condition of hammers, flow rate of corn to the mill, and hammer tip speed. The purpose of the Swine Team project was to evaluate ground corn samples from farms and commercial feed mills. To determine particle size, a grain samples were screened through a set of 5 screens in a sieve shaker, with each sample shook for ten minutes. There were 60 producers and commercial feed mills that submitted ground corn samples, with representation from 28 counties across Ohio. The estimated number of hogs fed by participating farms and feed mills exceeds 580,000 pigs per year.
Data presented include raw, unadjusted values for on-farm and feed mill samples of ground corn and soybean meal utilized in the study. In addition, to these results, the impact of grinder type (hammer mill vs. roller mill), screen size within hammer mills and an estimate of producer size by category were analyzed using statistical models to further evaluate the impact of these factors on micron size achieved in the study.