DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF AN ELECTRIC POWERED EGG INCUBATOR

Abstract

Poultry production is a lucrative business in Nigeria but inadequate hatchery machines limit the expansion and make poultry products for instance day old chicks more expensive. At the moment, few commercially owned poultry hatcheries in Nigeria are located distance far away in the western and Eastern parts of the country. Majority of these hatcheries have little or no access to the national grid system but operate at about 60 per cent below the installation capacity. Generally, environmental pollution, unreliability and lack of access to grid power supply and low performance efficiency characterize the condition of the poultry hatchery business powered by conventional energy supply in Nigeria. These hamper and adversely affect the establishment of medium to large scale poultry production outfits in the rural areas of the country. But with the advent of electric powered egg incubator technology in poultry production, poultry farmers in Nigeria are likely to incubate and hatch poultry eggs and breed day-old chicks under a sustained power supply in a clean environment. Therefore, this study was aimed at the design, developed and tested in order to provide a favourable environment for eggs hatching. The developed machine was tested to assess its performance. The results from the test showed that out of the total 25 eggs, 5 eggs hatched after operating the machine. This gives 33% hatchability. The results showed that with further improvements, the developed machine can adequately be adopted at the household level instead of rearing chickens for the sole purpose of incubating eggs.