Stabilization of incubation temperature in hot water chicken egg incubator

Abstract

In this study improved hot water chicken egg incubator temperature was stabilized in order to control hatching conditions hence improving hatching efficiency of existing egg incubator at Songwe Geothermal Hot Spring. The existing incubator was evaluated and results showed it has the capacity of 240 eggs and average hatching efficiency of 84%. Also, it had relatively low temperature stability with mean and standard deviation of 37.3°C and 0.69°C respectively. The improved hot water chicken egg incubator with a capacity of 280 eggs was designed, fabricated and tested. Incubator temperature was stabilized by variable flow rate of circulating hot water pump corresponding to incubator temperature changes. The flow rate of circulating hot water was proportional to temperature of incubator.  Results showed that improved hot water chicken egg incubator had the average hatching efficiency of 89% and relatively high temperature stability with mean and standard deviation of 37.83°C and 0.1°C respectively. These results showed a significant improvement as compared to existing incubator. A heat balance equation was formulated to quantify the heat transferred from hot water to circulating water, to the incubator circulating air, to the eggs and the heat lost to the surrounding.  Results revealed that most of heat transferred from circulating water to the incubator was utilized to raise and maintain the temperature of the incubator at 37.8^oC while the eggs absorbed a relatively small amount of heat, which was 3.136W. The improved incubator can be operated by heat from geothermal resources and waste heat from industries and power plants.