Development and Performance Test of Poultry Feed Mixing and Pelleting Machine

Poultry feed mixing and pelleting machine was designed, fabricated and tested. The machine consists of two chambers (mixing and pelleting) horizontally assembled together as a single machine. It consists of single hopper, single electric motor and a stand frame. The components of mixing chamber are mixer auger, single pulley and bearing whereas, the pelleting chamber consists of pelletizer auger, die plate and discharge chute. A 3hp single phase electric motor supply power to the machine with two V-belt drive connected to double and single pulley on pelleting and mixing chamber respectively. The electric motor drives the mixing and pelleting auger simultaneously. The main objective was to mechanize mixing and pelleting feed in order to reduce the tedious ways of producing it in manual form. It was observed that the mixing and pelletizing efficiency, through put capacity and the percentage recovery of the machine increased with increase in moisture content and the speed of the machine. An average machine capacity of 68kg/h was obtained on using 2litres of water and 70.37kg/h on using 3litres of water in feed formulation I. The machine showed higher throughput capacity of 166.67 kg/hr with maximum pelletizing and mixing efficiency of 97.24 %. The material hold up is likely to occur at higher feed rate then the lower feed rate. The material recovery rate was highest at 35minutes (68.06 Kg) and lowest at 25minutes (65.13 Kg) in formulation II. The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) for the effect of liquid quantity in moisturizing the feed, feed formulation and feed rate and their interactions on the capacity of the mixing and pelleting confirms that these factors are significant processing parameters that affect the performance and capacity of the machine.