Bird feather removal machine: Design and development

Abstract

Poultry product have seen increasing consumers demand in recent times and processing of poultry meat is a pain staking process which is becoming extremely tasking and uneconomical given the increase in demand especially in the rural community where there is no ready access to sophisticated equipment. The Nigerian poultry sector is extremely fragmented as most poultry farmers dedicate a small setup space to satisfy small scale demand of less than 1,000 birds [1]. In commercial events, the development of a poultry de-feathering machine becomes of high priority to meet the demand for poultry products. This paper therefore advocates the implementation of the modified defeathering machine as a suitable substitute of the tradition system which is slow and tedious. This proposed system improves on the defeathering machine with the implementation of a boiling chamber for first stage scalding, and a hot spray channel directly in the plucking chamber.