construction of a rechargeable incubator using available materials

Description

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background of the Study

Industrial rising of farm animals indoor under conditions of extremely restricted mobility is commonly known as factory farming. It is done part of industrial agriculture which is a set of method that changes as laws and technology change known as industrial agriculture which is designed to produce the highest output as the lowest cost using economics of scale, modern machinery modern medicine, and global trade for financing, purchase and sales.

Rechargeable egg incubator is one of the inventions that provides support unity especially for who or those that want to become excellent farmers. This is one the easy and fastest ways that can make a product. This construction will upgrade the egg incubator that are already in the market today, the system will automatically control the temperature and humidity of the incubator for various types of egg through rechargeable method. The function of the rechargeable incubator is to take over the job even if there is no normal A.C Current for incubation of an egg until hatching.

From the forgoing, birds are very important to man necessitating the need to maximize it production. As a source of foods, its rearing in large quantity can sustain the economy of a country by providing adequate supply of eggs and meat for both domestic consumption and export to other neighboring who are in need with a limited supply.

In our rural areas, a lot of laws eggs with good numbers bulk the heavy rains and harmatan period and due to diseases which causes insufficiency in the number of chicks all they now make is a conservative approaching poultry farming to ensure high productivity and minimize losses common to be primitive method of poultry animal.

This rechargeable incubator uses A.C current to change up the battery which is use for heating and turning of the eggs by slanting with hand opposite to the position which it had earlier been placed. This new model of incubator will ensure the poultry farmer not to be stranded when there is no A.C current to carry out the normal activities in the incubator. This will surely give a healthy chick, which is a product of good incubating condition.

1.2     Motivation

It is necessary for an egg to be rotated from time to time to mix the albumen. This mixing provides the embryo with important nutrients, anti-bacterial agents and disperses waste in the early stages of incubation. Hatching does not occur unless the eggs are subject to some kind of occasional turning. The world’s population is growing at an alarming rate and so is the demand for protein in our diets, especially in rural areas; poultry is a good source of protein and it is affordable. A broody hen, raised to hatch eggs and raise the chicks, can hatch just about 10-12 eggs at once in 21 days, which reduces its productivity as it takes time to incubate and hatch the chicks. For the world growing population, relying on this natural type of incubation is not enough, hence the need for artificial incubation can compromise the need for large production.

1.3     Statement of the Problem

In some parts of West Africa and Nigeria precisely, there are inadequate number of hatches due to lack of steady current for incubation, so therefore it has received little attention and because of this most of the farmers get stranded and even start to lose interest in the farming because they will look at the cost after production. The need for a modern rechargeable incubator is been constructed to tackle the issue, this will surely stop the farmer from putting all hope’s on lost during production.

1.4     Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of this project is to construct a rechargeable incubator using available materials in our environment to enable those in need’s to have access to eggs at a cheap and affordable price at any given time when asked for.

The specific objectives are;

1. To build the incubator with a rechargeable D.C battery which can control both the humidity and temperature.
2. To builds the incubator that is able to incubate various types of egg, making an egg incubator that is user friendly and will produce more valuable production and availability of many types of eggs

• To design an affordable automatic egg incubator of 150 egg capacity

1. To test the incubator and determine its efficiency
2. To design an incubator for small scale poultry farmers using materials available in our locality.

1.5     Significance of the Study

The significance of the study is to promote and encourage more production of egg’s by providing a rechargeable means that will increase the scale in egg production process at a particular time in need.

1.6     Scope and Limitation of the Study

The project undertaking is to design an egg incubator with automatic control system to monitor the temperature and humidity using Programmable Interface Controller (PIC) also with the potential to run 12volts battery power. This work is limited to the design and fabrication of an automatic egg incubator with a turning mechanism, to produce 150 day-old chicks in one batch for the production of chicks in poultry establishment.

1.7     Methodology

For this project, microcontroller contains the instruction for the incubation system. The power system which is the “START” begins the programming process and the microcontroller unit detect if the power from the source is available or not and system is then initialized, connecting the various units of the circuit. After this, the status of the incubator system is display on the LCD, the DC heater and DC fan are activated simultaneously. Then the DHT22 is active to measure both temperature and humidity of the incubator, if they are within the range (37.5^oCand 38.5^oC) it go ahead and activate the spinning mechanism for incubation process and the status are display on the LCD for the period of 21 days the eggs are expected to have hatch if not a sound detector circuit is incorporated to detect sound from the birds that hatches before or after 21 days and after the incubation the birds are drop to brooding chamber.

1.8     Definition of Terms

In the study of this rechargeable egg incubator, there are some electrical terms and definition which are useful;-

Incubator control panel: in an automatic insulation control device which regulates the temperature, humidity at level optional for growth and hatching of eggs in an incubator.
Rechargeable DC, strong and reliable battery usually 12v, 40AH and other

Battery: amperes, depend in the voltage and amperes needed. And is use to power the incubator.

Digital temperature controller:  is a device which is used to measure desired degree temperature in an incubator and also maintain the incubator at that temperature until the temperature is changed again.

Incandescent Bulb:  it is used as a heating system in eggs incubator system. Usually to a 60watts and the bulbs also work with either A.C or D.C current.

Turner gear motor:  is an incubator egg turning devices usually with low power consumption, large erosion, low noise, usually 220v and 25r.p.m revolution per minutes for rotating of the plastic cups which holds the eggs side and to exercise the embryo.

CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

5.1     Conclusion

The project carried out for the design of an incubator has met the objectives and the purpose it was design for, it was inferred from the result that locally made automatic incubator with a hatcher along with the turning mechanism was tested and found to be reliable as the performance test are carried out.

Temperature and relative humidity was also observed and adequately regulated using a temperature and humidity sensor respectively. Most of the materials used were locally sourced. From the result of the test and cost analysis, it is evident that the incubator produced is relatively cheap and efficient and durable.

5.2     Recommendation

The various stages involved in the development of this project has been properly enhanced comprehensively and this project focuses on improving the survival rate of the chicken eggs. This study will be limited to the incubation of eggs. The project will provide temperature/humidity tracking and control, incubation statistics so users can determine the success rate of the incubation, and the calendar to track the incubation period, the following recommendations which are worthy of note to add value to for further researches and improvement;

1. Increase the size of the incubator to accommodate 200 – 300 quantity of eggs
2. Motor with lower rating should be used to avoid high turning speed. There’s need for a constant supply of electricity to enable unobstructed operation of the incubator.

• Humidity and Temperature should be improved so that the Incubator will hatch other eggs such as turkey egg.

1. Increment of 12VDC battery is necessary to enable stabilized energy supply
2. Adopting another alternative of energy source such as solar energy, wind energy will be an added advantage.