Considerations for the design of a quail defeathering machine

A. W. Fazlil Ilahi and I. M. Sharif

Abstract

Quail, a hardy and nutritious bird, have good potential for increased production, both for meat and eggs. They are normally slaughtered at 5 weeks of age, scalded and defeathered by hand. As with chicken meat production, the commercialization of quail meat requires an appropriate defeathering machine. A formula for calculating the machine’s rotational speed and diameter was derived for effective defeathering. The formula was tested by using data of the sliding frictional force, the force to pull individual feather off the skin and the weight of scalded birds from an experiment set up for that purpose. The calculated speed and diameter were found to be close to that obtained by actually defeathering quail in a modified chicken defeathering machine.

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