Several methods and production facilities are provided in order to solve several problems encountered in conventional methods and facilities for producing reduced iron by reducing raw material pellets of a mixture of an iron oxide powder and a reducing material powder in a rotary bed-type reducing furnace and by melting the reduced iron in a sealed-type electro-blast furnace. Re-oxidation of reduced pellets of the mixture pellets is prevented by introducing into a rotary bed-type reducing furnace a reduced gas generated in an electro-blast furnace. In addition, an improved mechanical strength of reduced pellets after direct reduction is attained by applying rolling action to the reduced pellets. A few method and facilities are provided for reliable utilization of wet mixture pellets and a preferable compositions of binders for forming the raw material mixture are selected. A novel charging device for charging raw material pellets is developed which is capable of charging the pellets on the rotary bed as a uniform layer formed by piling one or more pellets.