Ankom DaisyII modifications to stabilise the rotation speed

Ankom DaisyII incubator (Ankom Technology, Macedon NY, USA) has gained acceptance as an alternative to traditional in vitro procedures to measure feed degradability. It reduces labour requirements and increases the number of determinations that can be completed by a single operator. The apparatus allows simultaneous incubation of multiple feedstuffs in the same jar, weighed in single bags, and placed in a continuously rotating incubator at 39.5 °C with a buffered inoculum. This simple procedure shows some functional limitation that can be resolved to obtain more reliable results. In particular, the jars do not rotate smoothly, with slowdowns, stops, and restarts that increase the variability of the instrument itself. In this paper, some low-cost and easily implementable structural adjustments are proposed, modifying the two drive rollers, and using a new drive pulley. These modifications can ensure steady conditions which are necessary in scientific experiments and reduce the doubts of the variability in degradability results related to an inaccurate instrumentation functionality.