Poultry is one of the most consumed agricultural produce in Ghana. Novelty/Improvement: The study demonstrated that the microcontrollerbased egg incubator is commendable for small-scale poultry producers. Further, the Modified technology is cost-efficient than the manual, which indicates a lower cost per chicken and ducks egg incubation of Php 20.07 and Php 17.2. It also showed higher net income for the farmers. It also shows that duck eggs have the most number of hatching compared to chicken eggs. Findings: The study showed that the designed incubator’s hatching efficiency ranges from 80-93% and with an average of 86.5% with the number of hatched eggs was 56 (93%) duck eggs and 48 (80%) chicken eggs. The incubator designed in this study uses modern methods such as the automated controllable device, which maintains humidity & temperature and enables automatic tray switching The study has also discussed the hatching efficiency and hatching capacity a financial review between the previous egg incubator and the proposed microcontroller egg incubator has been done. The researchers gathered information on temperature, humidity, cost-efficiency, advantages and disadvantages of the existing incubators, and the farmers’ feedback before designing.
Interviews with the farmers from the Northern Luzon Philippines also contributed to the design modification’s success. Methods: To meet the objectives, the researchers conducted several document analyses relative to the study to establish further the requirements needed to design a microcontroller-based incubator. Objectives: This study is geared towards the design modification of a costefficient automated egg incubator. The result of the test revealed the following average values- fertile eggs 95, infertile eggs 5, hatched eggs 85 and hatchability of 89.47% was achieved. 100 fresh, healthy, well developed and matured eggs were used to test the incubator. The trays were lifted through an angle of 40° either side of horizontal at every hour and lasted for four minutes. Turning of eggs was achieved with the use of tilting trays mechanism controlled by a programmed electric motor. Factors that were considered during the performance evaluation of the incubator were humidity, 55% and temperature, 37° C during the first 18 days and were maintained at 37.5 ☌ till hatching. The incubator has the hatching capacity of 100 eggs. The aim of this research was to produce a low cost user friendly modern incubator to increase the production of day old chicks for small and medium scale poultry farmers. This paper demonstrated the design, construction and performance evaluation of automated eggs incubator for poultry farmers.
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