Development and Performance Evaluation of a Rubber and Canvas Strip Fingers Defeathering Machine

Abstract

Human labour requirement in poultry products processing has continued to increase and more demanding, especially defeathering which is faced with faced challenges such as lacerations and hygiene in handling. To solve these challenges, mechanical defeathering proffered a solution, which further posed a problem of equipment cost and efficiency of operation. This paper investigated a developed a low-cost axial-loading (horizontal) defeathering with dual fingers for small and medium-scale poultry processors. This study reported the development of a defeathering machine which comprises of an axial defeathering drum with strip fingers, which flaps on the carcass to pluck off feathers in motion. The machine is electrically powered with a defeathering power requirement of 0.304 kW and at a power rating of 0.269 kW. The performance evaluation carried out with a broiler, cockerel and layer birds at a soaking temperature of 80 degree Celsius for an average time of 1 minutes showed that the efficiency and the effectiveness of the machine varies with respect to the quality of cleaned carcass produced. It was also observed that it takes the machine about 60 seconds to completely defeather a broiler of 2.4 kg weight, 70 seconds to defeather an old layer breed of bird of about 1.2 kg weight and 105 seconds to defeather a 1.3 kg weight of local chicken. However, test carried out on local birds showed that the machine was less effective defeathering local chicken at low temperature, because of the toughness of the skin. Comparatively, canvass (leather) fingers have the highest defeathering efficiency while rubber strip fingers produced the least defeathering efficiency. Therefore, canvas (leather) strip finger performed better than rubber strip fingers.