A 10-year-old boy from the Munad Guffan area of South Kashmir’s Kulgam district has developed a low-cost, portable egg incubator that could benefit the local poultry sector.
Momin Ishaq Teeli, a second-grade student at Government High School Munad, has been inquisitive about the availability of colored chicks in the market since he was a child.
Typically, an incubator houses eggs in warm temperatures when a hen begins to brood. However, incubators can be costly and large in size.
Momin’s egg incubator is portable and inexpensive, capable of hatching around 50 eggs at one time, providing a suitable temperature of 37.5 degrees required for hatching. The whole process takes 18 days to complete.
While no company has approached Momin to produce the incubators at a large scale yet, he and his family are committed to making the product available in the market to help the local poultry industry.
Momin’s journey towards developing the incubator was not easy. It took him three years to work on the idea, and he almost abandoned it due to the electricity curtailment schedules in Kashmir, which caused several problems. He persevered and got positive results a year later, leading to the incubator’s functional prototype this year.
“An egg incubator requires a continuous power supply for nearly 3 weeks to complete the whole process. But considering the electricity curtailment schedules in Kashmir, I faced various problems. I nearly dropped the idea,” Momin said.
“I want my egg incubator to help the local poultry industry flourish, especially during winters when it faces several challenges,” Momin added.—(With inputs from agencies)
