KNUST Teaching Assistant manufactures 600 capacity affordable incubator

A Teaching Assistant at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has taken innovation to a whole new level by inventing an incubator.

David Wakpal, who is with the Department of Animal Science, has managed to make a 600-capacity incubator for hatching chicks.

Interestingly, Wakpal’s incubators are very affordable for farmers who are into the business of poultry.

Farmers in Ghana have often shied away from using incubators due to how expensive they are on the market.

Wakpal said he has been researching into affordable ways of producing incubators since his second year in the university.

According to him, the idea of making an affordable incubator came to him after he struggled to buy one for his own turkey farm.

“It all started when I was seriously in need of an incubator for my turkey farm. The only way I could get one was to import or buy from an importer and it was expensive,” he told Luv FM.

“I later realised that this wasn’t a problem I alone faced, a lot of farmers were in need of it too. I concentrated on it so much sometimes I had to miss lectures.”

Through hard work, he managed to build his first fully automated incubator in his final year.

His very first incubator was built and assembled in his room because he didn’t have the capital to make the venture big.

Currently, though, Wakpal’s affordable incubators are being bought by a lot of local poultry farmers.

“Price is less than half the imported one. This can be serviced in Ghana because it was built by us and again adapted to our climate.

“This is a 600 capacity fully automated incubator. Later I tested at the Olympio hatchery, KNUST and it had a good hatching percentage.”

“It has a hatching percentage of over 80 percent,” he explained.

Although locally made, Wakpal’s incubators are of high quality and have “an automatic temperature and humidity control.”

The incubators also have “automatic egg turning systems, automatic ventilation, over limit protection controls and warning alarm system.”

Wakpal’s hope is that poultry farmers around the country will get access to quality but cheap fully automated incubators to make their farms more productive.