Located in Area 49 Gulliver, the locally made incubators are elevating the struggle small scale poultry farmers face in trying to get machines from abroad.

According to Nyasa Times, Chiku Chikhadzula, Marketing Officer for Incubators Malawi says, "The coming of Incubators Malawi has given hope to farmers as it has made hatching easier by supplying incubators at affordable prices."

"Our customers use the incubators differently. Others run hatchery business and sell day olds and others use it on their farms."

In mid-2017, Incubators Malawi launched a 12v Hybrid Incubator that can run on Escom, which is solar powered.

Mr Chikhadzula says, "With this new model, we intend to reach out to farmers in rural areas who are not connected to the Escom grid to also achieve their poultry goals successfully."

He says with an incubator, farmers can hatch chicken, quail, guinea fowls, ostrich, ducks and all other types of birds.

"A fertile egg costs 150 Malawi kwacha at the current rate with a chick being sold at 500 to 600 MK depending on the quality," says Mr Chikhadzula.

Inside the incubator are trays on which eggs are placed with each tray containing 30 eggs. For the 720 eggs capacity Incubator there are 24 trays.

The number goes up for incubators with a large capacity. The eggs are placed in the incubator for 21 days.

The first 18 days is for incubation and then, in the last three days, eggs are placed in hatching baskets on the floor of the Incubator to complete the 21-day cycle.

The smallest incubator from Incubators Malawi has a capacity of 300 eggs, while the biggest capacity can hold 2400 eggs. The company also makes high capacity incubators as per client requests.

Incubators Malawi offers a one year warranty and lifetime support to its customers.

The company has supplied over 50 incubators around Malawi and has also exported to Zambia and Mozambique.