Experimental evaluation of a poultry mixer machine

Abstract

The challenges facing the local poultry farmers in Ghana is alarming. Only a few have access to poultry feed mixer. However, the Government of the day has an interest in self-employment. A poultry feed mixer was designed, and constructed, for the low-income farmers using local materials in order to reduce cost-effectively and make it available and accessible to all small-scale poultry farmers. The mixer was evaluated by using five feed ingredients; maize, wheat bran, soya meal, oyster shell, and concentrate. The measurement comparison of feed rate, time, speed, moisture content, morphology, feed losses percentage, and mixer efficiency were performed on the mixer-machine. The mixer was characterized and analyzed using a feed component of three different measures of 4.5kg, 9.0kg, and 14.5kg with their respective time of 3 minutes, 6 minutes and 9 minutes respectively. Regression analysis was carried out on the test results collated during the evaluation of the mixer and the analysis contributed to the determination of the effectiveness and efficiency of the machine with different feed rates and times. The machine efficiency, percentage loss, moisture content, and production rate were 92.07%, 7.95%, 15%, and 90%, respectively. However, the results indicated that variation in percentage loss among samples tested ranges from 5.56% to 9.33% with and an average percentage of 7.95%. This was due to levels of moisture content of produce and the mixing processing levels which confirmed by the morphology of surfaces and texture of the mixed produce. Again, the results significantly revealed that the mixing capability of the proposed machine is effective and efficient compared to the existing machine used by small scale farmers. It is therefore recommended that poultry farmers should be encourage to use the proposed mixing machine.