DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF AN INTEGRATED FISH FEED MACHINE

Cover page                                                                                                 

Acknowledgement                                                                               v

Table of content                                                                                   vi

3.2.2.8 Determination of number of belts required for each drive    27

 

Fish farming is undoubted one of  the fatest growing  agricultural enterprise in Nigeria and Nigeria happens to be one of the largest  fish consumers in the world(Amadi, 2013). The importance of fisheries to the Nigeria economy is indicated by its contribution to the cross domestic product being 5.4% in 2002 (FDF).  Nigeria are high fish consumers with a total current consumption figures of about 1.5million metric tons with an annual fish import figure of about 700,000 (FAD, 2000) metric tons, Nigeria remains the highest importer of  fish and fishery products in Africa(Abiona et al, 2014).

The contribution of fisheries to the nation economy is very significant in term of employment, income generation poverty alleviation, foreign exchange earnings and provision of raw materials for the animal feed industry.

The local supply of fish and fishery products consists of production from the artisanal (85%), industrial (14%) and Aquaculture (1%) subsectors (FDF 2005). Ironically, aquaculture that has the highest potential of 2.5million metric tons is currently contributing about 1% (Ahmed Anas, 2012). 

In a nut shell, there is generally under production /shortfall in fish supply  which has led to low annual per capital fish consumption rate of 7.5kg, even though the WHO/FAO recommended 13.5kg/year (Muir et al., 2005). Hence, it is necessary to better the production in fish farming since many people have and are yet venturing into aquaculture in both small and large scale. unarguably, fish  feed is required in sufficient quantity for fish farming and as a matter of fact, for large scale farming, cost of fish feed is the greatest operating cost in aquaculture. Fish feed is classified into two (2) groups;

i. Moisture feeds: It is practiced for small scale fish production, maybe for personal consumption. The main principle is grind, mix and feed the fish.  It is cheaper than other feed types and does not require mechanization.   However this is unmodernized as it doesn`t have the  national economic growth at heart in terms of large scale production.

ii. Dry feeds (pellets and extruder feeds): It involves mechanization processes for production. It can be bought and stored for a long time yet the nutritional content of the feed is guaranteed . such a feed is what is required  in this era for production of both small scale and large scale fishes as the advantages are unequivocal. 

(Muir et al., 2005) Integrated Fish Feed machine is one of the outstanding developments in fish farming. It is one of the most important techniques in processing pellets for production of healthy wholesome animals feed. Production of animal feed through processing of raw food items depends upon proper use of existing traditional methods and modern development derived from the spectrum of research. (Amadi 2013) reported that a pelleting machine is one that is used to create cylindrical pellet from a mixture of dry powdered stocks, such as molasses, steam or as a machine used for converting materials and food items such as maize, groundnuts, and millets with other additives in good ratio. Pellets are produced through a process known as extrusion. It has been observed that in the past years, fish, poultry and other animals were fed in a primitive way which involved milling of grains and cereals as meals on stones and mortar. This could not meet the safe and healthy food requirements of animals let alone their growth and development in order to meet both aesthetic and market requirements of these animals. It was discovered that animals preferred feeding on solid and soft nutritious meals, and one of the devices that can provide this mixture of nutrients in powdered form is the pelleting machine. Similarly, it has been asserted that pelleting machines are built to perform the following functions: mould animals feed meals in form of soft capsules which can easily be consumed by fish and poultry animals, to produce saw dust as fuel used in a pellet stove, production of iron ore pellets in varying diameters for blast pig iron production, and production of chemical pellet (Kumar, 2012). 

It is an established fact that protein from foods of animal origins is lacking in everyday diet of many Nigerians. This deficiency is responsible for a great deal of ill-health and many deaths in almost all the states of Nigeria. Even in the absence of ill health, protein deficiency leads to poor growth, muscular weakness and increase in susceptibility to many diseases (FDF, 2015). The support to meet the demand by various domestic animals and fish from natural water has so far failed to provide the populace with balanced diet needed. 

It is imperative therefore to increase protein production by all possible means. First is by the intensification of the existing means of production (Bene and Heck, 2005). And second by the introduction and development of additional source of protein. Fish culture in artificial water is one of the best way to increase the availability of food rich in protein. However, to get the best result from fish culture systems the role played by fish feed should also be defined. Although aquaculture is fast developing in Nigeria, the yields obtained from the fish farms are still low. The low yield has been attributed to inadequate supply of balanced fish diets (Faturoti and Akinbote, 2016). At the moment only few organizations are engaged in fish feed manufacturing in the country and it is still not possible to meet the large potential demands for feeds. However, there is a large potential of feed ingredients from local plant and animal sources which are capable of supplying the nutritive requirement of fish. 

The dry fish feed is produced by what is called FISH FEED PELLET MACHINE. Pellet presses for the production of fish feed was first introduced in the mid-1920s (McEllhiney, 2017). The production of and demand for pelleted feeds for fish has grown until now. Over 98 percent of all feeds are fed in pelleted form in Europe and North America (Yonina Eldar, 2012). Yet, the demand for and production of pelleted feeds for fish are practically non-existent in many African countries in spite of the known feeding and handling advantages of pelleted feeds (Anon, 2016). 

Although fish farming is undoubted one of the fatest growing agricultural enterprise in Nigeria and Nigeria happens to be one of the largest fish consumers in the world, it may amazed you to realize that as important as fish farming is to our economy, besides the few using the moisture feed, most nigerians depend on imported dry fish pellet feeds produced by foreign integrated fish feed pellet machine overseas. Some of our local companies into feed production even go forward to import those machines(For those who can afford them). A few other persons and firms who have dared to produce dry feeds themselves use the local disintegrated fish feed machine whose processes are separated and require the operator moving from one process point to another.  It adds up that some limitations are note worthy which includes;    

Adding all the expenses made in the process of importation of feeds as well as the cost of the feed, we would discover it is even really more expensive when we compare relatively to that of the cost of same quantity of feed if produced locally as a moisture feed then sun dried.

As already stated, cost of feed is the greatest operating cost in aquaculture. Drawing from economics, selling price of product always increase when the capital  involved is on the high side.

One big challenge for a disintegrated feed machine is that the processes are separated and require the operator  moving from one process point end to another with the output of each end until the final output  is gotton. This can be arduous.

Oweing to these limitations, this project is been carried out to create a solution in the sense that the ;grinding unit, the pelleting unit and the dryer section will be integrated as a unit system yet the size will be compact, less energy and movement  would be involved, cost of production would be better, feed would be relatively cheaper and adequate amount of fish feed  would be produced within a reasonable time.

The aim of the project is to design and develop a highly efficient integrated fish feed machine of compact size and minimal cost using local materials. Such a machine that can compare  favourably with that of  it foreign counterpart.

This study involves design and development of an integrated fish fish  machine.

As earlier stated, the demand of fish is increasing continuously, many farmers have started fish farming in small scale for fulfilling their daily family demands or in large scale for making more profit. Commercial fish farming in Nigeria has great opportunities. One of significant factors in fish farming is fish feed which can offer fish better digestion & absorption and better living environment. To produce fish feed, lots of disintegrated fish feed machines in Nigeria are widely utilized in fish farming. Obviously, fish feed machine, the equipment responsible for fish feed production, plays an important role in fish farming. Cheaper yet efficient fish feed machine would make production easier thus encouraging farmer and people interested in going into the business, Consequently the economy gets improved.