You have no items in your shopping cart.
ABSTRACT
This paper demonstrated the design, construction and performance evaluation of an automated solar powered egg incubator for poultry farmers. The aim of this project work was to produce a low cot user friendly automatic incubator to increase the production of day-old chicks for small and medium scale poultry farmers. The incubator has the hatching capacity of 180 eggs. Factors that were considered during the performance evaluation of the incubator were humidity 50% - 65%, and temperature, 37C to 38C during the first 18 days and were maintained at 37.5C till hatching occurred. Turning of eggs was achieved through the use of a tilting tray mechanism controlled by an electric AC synchronous motor. The three trays were lifted through an angle of 45 to either side of the horizontal for each complete revolution of the electric motor. 68 eggs fresh, healthy, well developed and matured eggs were used to test the incubator. The result of the test revealed the following values: fertile eggs 55, infertile eggs 13, hatched eggs 42 and hatchability of 76.36% was achieved.
