Abstract:
A livestock feed chopper was designed, fabricated and evaluated for its performance using maize plant. Study of the engineering properties of maize plant, relevant for the design of the chopper were made. The chopper was tested using three levels of moisture content (56.38, 67.92 and 76.43% wet bases), feed roller speeds (145.00, 180.00 and 215.00 rpm) and cutting speeds (550.00, 700.00 and 850.00 rpm) with three replications. The effectiveness of chopping was assessed in terms of maize plant cut/chop length, cutting efficiency, chopper capacity, chopper efficiency and power consumption. The results indicated that decreasing feed roller speed or increasing both cutting head speed and maize plant moisture content, cut length/chops with less than 20.00 mm length increased while those between 20.00 and 30.00 mm and greater than 30.00 mm decreased. The findings revealed that the percentages cut length smaller than 20.00 mm ranging from 23.96 to 69.35% was recorded. The mean percentage cut length between 20.00 and 30.00 mm ranging from 21.50 to 52.54% was observed and the mean percentage of cut length greater than 30.00 mm ranging from 8.14 to 34.25% occurred. Furthermore, the results revealed that, mean cutting efficiency increased with increasing cutting head speed and maize plant moisture content, but decreased with increasing feed roller speed. The mean cutting efficiency ranged from 84.63 to 95.13%. The results also showed that increasing both feed roller speed and maize plant moisture content increased mean actual chopper capacity and mean chopper efficiency. For all treatment’s combinations, the mean actual chopper capacity and mean chopper efficiency were decreased with increase in cutting head speed. In general, the mean chopper capacity ranged from 357.12 to 609.39 kg/hr and the mean chopper efficiency ranged from 86.39 to 96.48%. The mean power consumption ranged from 0.015 to 0.021 kW/kg. From the performance indices of the maize plant chopper, it can be concluded that the performance of the prototype chopper is acceptable with high prospect for extending the technology for small and medium scale farmers.
