Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences: Research Areas

Abstract:
The growing need for poultry products by consumers has urged the necessity for small and medium scale poultry farmers to meet up the demand since they supply the bulk need of the market especially in the developing countries. There exist the need to produce birds that will meet the market standards within the shortest time without straining the farmer's time, resources and energy. This project was done in an effort to provide a labour/time saving mechanically operated automatic feeder that will optimize feeding of birds in family poultry and small/medium scale poultry farms. The density, moisture content, angle of repose and the coefficient of friction between the feeds and the bin material of the feeder were used in the design analysis. The model feeder which could feed twenty five (25) adult poultry birds for one week was constructed using sheet metal, wood, and spring as construction materials. The feeder trough and hopper are of gauge 20 metal sheet. In operation, the trough held 5 kg of feeds thus pulling the stopper to block the hopper for the introduction of the feed. The feeder set up dispensed its content to twenty five (25) adult layers for a period of one week. From the feeder evaluation using Roman Brown layers, the consumption efficiency was 70 % per week. The feeding convenience for the twenty five (25) birds (layers) of average weight of 1.53 kg was about 80 % with permissible wastage of 30 %. Cost of production is N14,000:00 ($86:00).

Keywords: Design, construction, testing, family, poultry, feeder.

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