Feedmill

[Maizefarmer]

Hi Guys

I have loads of messages to chase up on my message inbox.

Apologies to all who have being waiting for me to pull my finger out my arse - I have being in India (and will be till Sunday) negotiating the purchase of a small 2nd hand commercial feedmill - which was successfull, but wow, that is a nation of bazaar merchants and very tough bargin drivers!!! Spent 2 weeks now dismantling it and packing it into 3 containers to bring back to Thailand. My own feedmill - at last!!!. Nothing great, its' all analoge (i.e. no fancy electronics to maintain), which I guess is better for Thailand (if its mechanical it can be fixed, if it's electronic sure as hel_l you're going to have a headache down the line getting some small part or PC type board, worth nothing but which brings the whole thing to a standstill). Good for between 500kg - 1500kg per day dry feed/concentrate/pellets/powder and flakes and p/day.

Included is a whole bunch of bits and pieces which make it suitable for fish and chicken feed production as well. If anyone has any input on fish feed production - I'm all ears.

Will catch up with all otustanding messages and business with forum members next week.

Thanx

MF.

[Tilapia]

Hi Guys

I have loads of messages to chase up on my message inbox.

Apologies to all who have being waiting for me to pull my finger out my arse - I have being in India (and will be till Sunday) negotiating the purchase of a small 2nd hand commercial feedmill - which was successfull, but wow, that is a nation of bazaar merchants and very tough bargin drivers!!! Spent 2 weeks now dismantling it and packing it into 3 containers to bring back to Thailand. My own feedmill - at last!!!. Nothing great, its' all analoge (i.e. no fancy electronics to maintain), which I guess is better for Thailand (if its mechanical it can be fixed, if it's electronic sure as hel_l you're going to have a headache down the line getting some small part or PC type board, worth nothing but which brings the whole thing to a standstill). Good for between 500kg - 1500kg per day dry feed/concentrate/pellets/powder and flakes and p/day.

Included is a whole bunch of bits and pieces which make it suitable for fish and chicken feed production as well. If anyone has any input on fish feed production - I'm all ears.

Will catch up with all otustanding messages and business with forum members next week.

Thanx

MF.

Hi MF

You could always catch up with me, I have a simular mill for making floating pellets for fish.

Tilapia.

[Somtham]

Hi Guys

I have loads of messages to chase up on my message inbox.

Apologies to all who have being waiting for me to pull my finger out my arse - I have being in India (and will be till Sunday) negotiating the purchase of a small 2nd hand commercial feedmill - which was successfull, but wow, that is a nation of bazaar merchants and very tough bargin drivers!!! Spent 2 weeks now dismantling it and packing it into 3 containers to bring back to Thailand. My own feedmill - at last!!!. Nothing great, its' all analoge (i.e. no fancy electronics to maintain), which I guess is better for Thailand (if its mechanical it can be fixed, if it's electronic sure as hel_l you're going to have a headache down the line getting some small part or PC type board, worth nothing but which brings the whole thing to a standstill). Good for between 500kg - 1500kg per day dry feed/concentrate/pellets/powder and flakes and p/day.

Included is a whole bunch of bits and pieces which make it suitable for fish and chicken feed production as well. If anyone has any input on fish feed production - I'm all ears.

Will catch up with all otustanding messages and business with forum members next week.

Thanx

MF.

MF - did you ever get this feedmill delivered and set up? What did you pay for it? Are you producing feeds and if so what types and at what costs? How does your cost compare to purchased feeds? Any update you want to share would be great.

rgds

[Maizefarmer]

Hi Guys

I have loads of messages to chase up on my message inbox.

Apologies to all who have being waiting for me to pull my finger out my arse - I have being in India (and will be till Sunday) negotiating the purchase of a small 2nd hand commercial feedmill - which was successfull, but wow, that is a nation of bazaar merchants and very tough bargin drivers!!! Spent 2 weeks now dismantling it and packing it into 3 containers to bring back to Thailand. My own feedmill - at last!!!. Nothing great, its' all analoge (i.e. no fancy electronics to maintain), which I guess is better for Thailand (if its mechanical it can be fixed, if it's electronic sure as hel_l you're going to have a headache down the line getting some small part or PC type board, worth nothing but which brings the whole thing to a standstill). Good for between 500kg - 1500kg per day dry feed/concentrate/pellets/powder and flakes and p/day.

Included is a whole bunch of bits and pieces which make it suitable for fish and chicken feed production as well. If anyone has any input on fish feed production - I'm all ears.

Will catch up with all otustanding messages and business with forum members next week.

Thanx

MF.

MF - did you ever get this feedmill delivered and set up? What did you pay for it? Are you producing feeds and if so what types and at what costs? How does your cost compare to purchased feeds? Any update you want to share would be great.

rgds

The mill is up & running and has being since last year. How much did it cost(??) I'd rather not say publicly but it landed up costing a lot more than I budgeted for so I have not being able to structure everything the way I wanted to and instead of being a 100% holder, I was forced into a partnership to raise around 41% of the total capital outlay.

In return all production is contracted for currently to a company who has larger feedmill.

The only product being produced (currently) are 4 high bypass cattle mixes - 2 prepartum and 2 postpartum - the differances being protein %.

It will take about 2 years to free myself from that contract. Commencing in June 2008 I will be able to start releasing a quantity on a monthly basis brandnamed however I wish. Over the next 18 months the amount allocated to the partnership agreement will ramp down and come June/July 2010 all interest will have being paid back (which is being done through current production) and I will be left with a percentage of capital to pay back (which I will pay back with cash from June '08 onwards production).

Theres a whole bunch of ways to look at such an arrangment, but form my perspective it offered a garunteed market for the output, which slowly reverts back to me over a 36 month period of time - enabling me to build up my market base with little risk of running into production committmements I can't honour.

Before anyone asks - I am not wholesaling/retailing and won't be till the 2nd half of this year that I will be in a position to start releasing production with my own brandname. Ex-pats will be able to purchase at discounted rates for their own use, and if you think you can compete with the established wholesalers - by all means I wil wholesale to you as well.

I have no interest in producing chicken or pig mixes, but fish is a possibility for the future.

[Maizefarmer]

..... and I should add: I would be very interested to speak to anyone who needs/wants custom mixes - which I will be able to accomodate on a min mass base of around 5 000kg p/order - and if thats for fish food, then yes, I'd be willing to give fish pellets more prioroity than I am currently thinking of given to fish food for the first few years.

[Somtham]

The mill is up & running and has being since last year. How much did it cost(??) I'd rather not say publicly but it landed up costing a lot more than I budgeted for so I have not being able to structure everything the way I wanted to and instead of being a 100% holder, I was forced into a partnership to raise around 41% of the total capital outlay.

In return all production is contracted for currently to a company who has larger feedmill.

The only product being produced (currently) are 4 high bypass cattle mixes - 2 prepartum and 2 postpartum - the differances being protein %.

It will take about 2 years to free myself from that contract. Commencing in June 2008 I will be able to start releasing a quantity on a monthly basis brandnamed however I wish. Over the next 18 months the amount allocated to the partnership agreement will ramp down and come June/July 2010 all interest will have being paid back (which is being done through current production) and I will be left with a percentage of capital to pay back (which I will pay back with cash from June '08 onwards production).

Theres a whole bunch of ways to look at such an arrangment, but form my perspective it offered a garunteed market for the output, which slowly reverts back to me over a 36 month period of time - enabling me to build up my market base with little risk of running into production committmements I can't honour.

Before anyone asks - I am not wholesaling/retailing and won't be till the 2nd half of this year that I will be in a position to start releasing production with my own brandname. Ex-pats will be able to purchase at discounted rates for their own use, and if you think you can compete with the established wholesalers - by all means I wil wholesale to you as well.

I have no interest in producing chicken or pig mixes, but fish is a possibility for the future.

Good to hear that you got it up and running. Are you at liberty to discuss what your costs are compared to purchasing a commercial feed?

rgds

[Maizefarmer]

No secret ...... it's something that was in the planning phase for about 11 years before I could finaly get around to taking care of all the practical issues. I haven't worked out what the savings are.

There several different accounting models that could be used and each will reflect different levels of saving. I haven't finalised how its going to run in the long term, but currently as it works, the mill is a seperate business which invoices the farm monthly. Using this model the savings are averaging out at around 34%.If I was include the profit from the mill as part of the feed cost savings, then the savings figure becomes something like 57%.

It depends how you model the relationship between the 2 businesses - keeping them as seperate entities limits the farm savings, but enhances the value of the businesses. Intergrating them as one business, or at least on the balance sheet, it may even be possible to reflect feed costs with a 100% saving, but that would reduce the value of the mill.

We'll run a number of different accounting models for a few years and see which works out best, but overall I think it would be fair to say that in real terms the savings to the farm are around 1/3 over reatail processed feed costs - the biggest expenses are fuel and processed feed costs, so its s saving not to be sneezed at.