Development and Performance Evaluation of Engine-Operated Dual Animal Feed Chopping and Milling Machine
Downloads
Ethiopia’s livestock population is the largest in Africa, however different factors or constraints limit the full exploitation of the agricultural sector in general and the livestock “sub-sector” in particular. In the country, the availability, quality, and quantity of feed have always been a challenge in the livestock sector. This process is laborious and time takes more. To alleviate this problem, using maize and sorghum stalks is an important remedy. Therefore, the chopping and milling machine was developed and evaluated. The research was conducted at Jimma Agricultural Engineering Research Center, Dedo and Kersa districts to evaluate the machine performance in terms of chopping efficiency, throughput capacity, cutting efficiency, milling efficiency and fuel consumption at different speeds of cutter shaft. The output of the chopper was found to be a remarkable achievement. The performance of the machine was evaluated using sorghum stalk, maize stalk, and maize grains with treatments of the engine speed, and feed rate using factorial design with three replications. The highest mean chopping capacity of maize and sorghum stalk (511.33 kg hr-1, 551.33 kg hr-1)respectively, the finest of (shortest) mean cut length maize and sorghum stalk(1.13cm, 1.01cm) respectively, the highest chopping efficiency of maize and sorghum stalk(97.54% , 98.68%) respectively, the highest milling efficiency and milling capacity of maize grains 93.8% and 234kg hr-1respectively,and the mean lowest fuel consumption of maize and sorghum was 0.58 liter and 0.52 liter respectively were recorded. The operation speed was observed to be highly significant among the treatments, at a significance level of 0.05. Based on the result obtained, it is recommended to improve the capacity of the machine.
T. Alemneh and M. Getabalew, “Beef cattle production systems, challenges and opportunities in Ethiopia,” Health (Irvine. Calif)., no. July, 2019, doi: 10.19080/JOJPH.2019.05.555651.
FAO, “African Sustainable Livestock 2050: The future of livestock in Ethiopia. Opportunities and challenges in the face of uncertainty.,” pp. 1–38, 2019.
CSA.. Central statistical authority of Ethiopia, “Report on Livestock and Livestock Characteristics (Private Peasant Holdings),” Stat. Bull., no. 2, 2021.
M. Yonas, “Design, fabrication and performance evaluation of animal feed chopping machine,” African J. Agric. Res., vol. 17, no. 8, pp. 1155–1160, 2021, doi: 10.5897/ajar2021.15626.
A. Mengistu, G. Kebede, F. Feyissa, and G. Assefa, “Review on Major Feed Resources in Ethiopia: Conditions, Challenges and Opportunities,” Acad. Res. J. Agri. Sci. Res, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 176–185, 2017, doi: 10.14662/ARJASR2017.013.
Z. Taheri, S. Karimi, H. Mehrban, and A. Moharrery, “Supplementation of different selenium sources during early lactation of native goats and their effects on nutrient digestibility, nitrogen and energy status,” J. Appl. Anim. Res., vol. 46, no. 1, pp. 64–68, 2018,
doi: 10.1080/09712119.2016.1259625.
K. Muhammad, K. H. Walusimbi, K. Jimmy, and M. Swidiq, “Design and performance evaluation of a NARO forage chopper prototype for smallholder dairying systems,” Des. Perform., vol. 5, no. 11, pp. 547–551, 2018.
D. J. Shrinivasa, S. M. Mathur, and A. Khadatkar, “Design and evaluation of portable compound cattle feed pelleting machine for farm-level feed production,” J. Sci. Ind. Res. (India)., vol. 80, no. 2, pp. 105–114, 2021,
doi: 10.56042/jsir.v80i02.41178.
M. Chukwuemeka Amonye et al., “Design and Development of a Crop Residue Crushing Machine,” Int. J. Eng. Invent., vol. 2, no. 8, pp. 28–34, 2013, [Online]. Available:
www.ijeijournal.com
“Khurmi RS and Gupta JK (2005). A textbook of machine design. S.I. Units. Eurasis Publishing House (PVT) Limited, New Delhi. (I).”.
Shigley-j.-e.-, mechanical-engineering-design-, 8th-editio ed. 2001.
M. Lv, L. Yan, Z. Wang, S. An, M. Wu, and Z. Lv, “Effects of feed form and feed particle size on growth performance, carcass characteristics and digestive tract development of broilers,” Anim. Nutr., vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 252–256, 2015, doi: 10.1016/j.aninu.2015.06.001.
B. D. Srivastava AK, Goering CE, Rohrbach RP, “Engineering Principles of Agricultural Machines, Second Edition. https://doi.org/10.13031/epam.2013,” 2013.
A. Elfatih, E. M. Arif, and A. E. Atef, “Evaluate the modified chopper for rice straw composting,” J. Appl. Sci. Res., vol. 6, no. 8, pp. 1125–1131, 2010.
A. Awgichew, “Development and Performance Evaluation of Power Driven Chopper,” Asian J. Appl. Sci. Technol., vol. 04, no. 04, pp. 13–20, 2020, doi: 10.38177/ajast.2020.4402.
