An Investigation of Optimized Operational Parameters for a Chicken Slaughtering System in Vietnam

A 500 birds/hour chicken slaughtering system with improved designs was used to investigate optimized operational parameters of scalding and defeathering process under chicken characteristics in Vietnam. The experiment is designed based on Orthogonal Second-order Design. Results of analysis of variance presented that scalding temperature and distance between two defeathering bands have had a most significant effect on product quality. The optimal solutions showed that the optimized operation parameters are 1.8 (m3/20birds) in scalding water flow, 67 (0C) in scalding temperature and 80 (seconds) in scalding time for scalding machine; and 415 (mm) in gap between two defeathering bands, 340 (rpm) in defeathering disc velocity and 120 (seconds) in defeathering time for defeathering machine. The implementation results of the lines designed based on these optimized operational parameters have confirmed the appropriateness for the optimization values suggested.