A group of students from Makerere, Kyambogo and Makerere University business school-MUBS have innovated an egg incubator for their farm after failing to have any access to chicks for rearing.
The students argue that the initial plan was to procure chicks; however, this did not go according to the plans since they failed to have the access to chicks after several attempt.
Nickson Baguma, a first year student of bachelors in Information systems and Technology, says at the start of the lockdown, they came up with an idea of poultry keeping, after agreeing with each other, they set all the requirements for a poultry farm such as feed troughs, drinkers, mash among others, well knowing that it was easy for them to acquire day old chicks (DOCs).
When everything was ready, they started the struggle to get DOCs which was so difficult in a way that they would order for chicks in July and expect the chicks in November.
“We sat and agreed that we have to be agents of change on that issue as educated youth, we mobilized the little funds we had and acquired some little loans and successfully constructed an incubator” Baguma explains.
According to Baguma, the machine was tested two times with the first testing, 12 eggs in the incubator, five hatched and 7 seveni failed and they attribute this failure to shortages of power, unfertilized eggs and lack of knowledge for operating the incubator. The Second testing had 12 eggs in the incubator, six hatched successfully. This means they have registered an improvement of one egg from the previous testing.
A 400 capacity egg incubator is made of wood and the Inside is coated with a blanket to keep warmth, it cost about shillings 1.2million. It has a hatching rate of 75%. The force-air incubator has a fan that spreads the warm air all over the egg chamber.
Richie Atusasire Twiine another student says that this incubator took them over two months to have it in existence. He adds that they experienced a challenge in acquiring the thermostat and hygrometer which was so tiresome.
“So far we have used it to hatch the chicken eggs only but we are sure it can hatch even all the other types of eggs” Atusasire explains.
The students include; Nickson Baguma, a first year student of bachelors in Information systems and Technology, Innocent Duhibaze second year student of Bachelors of commerce, Osbert Natukunda a first year student of civil engineering Kyambogo University, Hilda Nuwabiine first year student of bachelor of business administration, Shivan Asasira first year student of bachelors of Education and Richie Atusasire Twiine, a lab technician at Kyamakanda health centre in Rukungiri.
Most Universities and other higher institutions of learning are set to open for the first semester in this very month after being closed since March 2020.
