Development of a Dual Mechanized Chicken De-Feathering and Yam Pounding Machine

Abstract

The demand for poultry meat world-wide and pounded yam most
especially in Africa has imposed great responsibility on poultry and
yam processing industries, and especially in de-feathering operation
and pounding of yam which are usually achieved manually in Nigeria
and other part of Africa. Therefore, the need to have a machine to
carry out defeathering of poultry and pounding of yam becomes
sacrosanct. This study was focused on design, construction and
performance evaluation of a dual mechanized chicken de-feathering
and yam pounding machine using locally available materials. The
design was based on market weight of chicken. The selected materials
used to fabricate the machine were sheet metals, stainless steel, belt
and shaft. The length of yam beater is 200mm x 30mm x 5mm. The
diameter of driving pulley is 70mm. The diameter of driven pulley is
210mm. The length and breadth of the frame is 580mm x 580mm. The
performance evaluation result showed that chicken variety had effect
on the de-feathering efficiency, throughput capacity and energy
consumption of the machine. Scalding time and scalding temperature
did not significantly affect through put capacity and energy
consumption but scalding temperature had significant effect on defeathering efficiency. The average efficiency is about 81.5 % and the
total efficiency is about 83.5%