DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF AN IMPROVED BRIQUETTE POWERED EGG INCUBATOR

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The following report examines the combined work integrated in building an egg incubator for hatching bird eggs; the project was the result of the collective work of my project partner and me. The report sheds some light on the overall construction process of the incubator. Incubation of eggs is a critical process in poultry production on a large scale. This is because many eggs can be hatched into chicks in a short time. However, rural farmers cannot access modern incubators due to their high cost and inadequacy of electricity. This means that they are restricted to subsistence poultry production which limits their income. The study was to design and develop an incubator that is powered by briquettes which is a form of green energy thus environmentally friendly and also from low cost materials which are locally available. The incubation process (for chicken) has two key requirements which include a temperature of 37°C and humidity of 50%-55% for the first 18 days and 65% for the last three days. With these requirements in mind, we designed our incubator to be powered by briquettes made from mainly plant wastes and charcoal dust. These briquettes burn and give off heat that moves along a vent to the incubation area. This provides the required heat and also vaporizes some water in a bowl in the incubation area to provide this required humidity. Heat regulation is a technical aspect and we developed a control mechanism that turns on a fan when the heat exceeds the acceptable limits of 39°C to cool this incubator. When it drops below 35°C, the fans are turned off and conditions are normal. Humidity control is manual and if it is not optimum, we reduce and increase water in the bowl as required. The incubator works well under room conditions and therefore for efficiency, it has to be in an enclosed room to protect it from adverse weather conditions and external damage from foreign materials. Also, more studies need to be done to clearly understand the heat capacity of briquettes and how they can be improved. (1.641Mb)
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Oloya, Andrew
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http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12281/4222
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