Design and Construction of an Automated Chick Brooding Machine (ACBM).

Abstract

Brooding is the period immediately after hatching when special care and attention must be given to chicks to ensure good health and survival. It can also be defined as the process by which heat is supplied to newly hatched chicks, until such time that their thermo-regulatory mechanism is functional. The objective of this design work was to make use of locally available materials to construct an automated poultry brooding machine and to test the performance of the constructed brooder. The brooder was constructed in a symmetrical two-sided roof structure of height 70cm, width 60cm, and length of 120cm. Programmable micro-Controller was used as an environmental controller in order to direct the heater, bulb and fan thus controlling the environmental conditions. The result of the tested brooder gave us an efficiency of 94.59% making use of the observed maximum temperature of the brooder. Therefore, the brooder was constructed in a portable form for ease of handling and to help farmers brood their chicks on larger scale.