Development and Performance Evaluation of Home-Made Electric and Kerosene Lump Egg Incubator

Abstract

This study was carried out to develop and evaluate the performance of home-made electric and kerosene lump egg incubator capable of incubating 150 eggs at predetermined temperature and humidity. The fabricated incubator consists of an egg cabinet made from MDF and plywood, egg tray made from mesh wire, TS-C700 temperature controller, hygrometer, a kerosene lump, water pan, and cooling fan system. The performances were evaluated in terms of hatchability rate, chick normality, fertility, and embryonic mortality rate. The experimental design used was simple descriptive statistics against the biological performance of the incubator. Naturally mated stock koekoek chicken eggs were used for evaluation of the developed incubator. The investigation revealed that the machine was evaluated at temperature of 37.50C and 60% relative humidity for the first 18 days of incubation and then temperature was lowered to 36.50C and increasing relative humidity to 65%. The ambient temperature of egg incubator has more effect on the interior temperature making the interior temperature varied. The average hatchability rate, fertility, embryonic mortality rate, and chick normality were 77.60%, 57.02%, 9.61% and 91.96% at average temperature of 37.240C and 60.75% of relative humidity were observed during incubation test. Depending on the performance results of the the incubator, it is concluded that the constructed incubator machine can be effectively and efficiently used by small and medium-scale poultry farmers.