MANUFACTURE A NEW PROTOTYPE FOR CHOPPING RICE AND BARLEY STRAW FOR PRODUCING THE LITTER OF POULTRY HOUSES

Abstract

The experimental work was carried out at Rice Mechanization Center, Meet Eldeebah village, Kafr Elsheikh governorate during harvesting session of 2013, to manufacture a new prototype for chopping rice and barley straw for producing the litter of poultry houses. The investigated variables were straw feed rate (0.15, 0.16, 0.17 and 0.18kg/s) and chaff cutting length (1.5, 2.5, 3.5 and 5cm). The effect of these variables on the prototype productivity, cutting efficiency and the energy consumed, ware investigated, the main results summarized as: At 0.16 kg/s feed rate, the productivity increased from 0.56 to 1.9t/h for rice, and from 0.41 to 1.39 t/h for barley when the cutting length increased from 1.5 to 5 cm. At 1.5cm cutting length, by increasing the feed rate from 0.15 to 0.18 kg/s, the prototype cutting efficiency decreased from 75 to 70 % for rice, and from 81 to 75.6 % for barley. The energy consumption rate of prototype decreased with increasing the feed rate of rice and barley straw. At 1.5cm cutting length, by increasing the feed rate from 0.15 to 0.18 kg/s, the energy consumption rate of prototype decreased from 9.84 to 8.36kw.h/t for rice, and from 8.36 to 7.1 kW.h/t for barley. Evaluation of using of two cutting methods (manufacture and normal) of shaving woods, barley and rice straw as bedding materials and mixture between barley + rice straw (1:1) on broiler performance, carcass yields, Bedding characteristics and chemical analysis of broiler meat, the body weight gain and feed intake, as well as, feed conversion ratio were improved (P<0.05) with the prototype cutting than normal cutting system.