A Robotic Machine Vision System for Tracking Dead Chickens
It’s estimated that approximately 20 million chickens in the U.S. die in commercial poultry houses before reaching market age or arriving at slaughterhouses for various reasons. In commercial broiler or cage-free laying hen houses, thousands of chickens are housed within the same facility in high density. Animal wellbeing monitoring, including daily mortality checks, is typically […]
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Monitoring Perching Behavior of Cage-free Hens with Machine Vision
Domestic fowl shows the tendon-locking phenomenon, which lets them to express perching behavior (PB) with minimum muscular effort. The domestic hens look for an elevated structure for resting during night as that the jungle fowl, in order to prevent themselves from ground predators. Providing perches in cage-free (CF) housing (Figure 1) offers significant benefits for […]
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Monitoring Cage-free Hens’ Pecking with Deep Learning
US Egg production is transitioning from conventional cage to cage-free system. While cage-free system allows birds to perform natural behaviors such as dustbathing, foraging, and perching, an inherent challenge is feather pecking (FP, Figure 1). Pecking is one of the primary welfare issues in commercial cage-free hen houses as that…
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Tracking Broiler Chickens at Different Ages with Deep Learning
Broiler production and issues: The world’s population is expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050 and the requirement for animal products (e.g., meat, eggs, and milk) will be increased by 70% as compared to 2005 levels. As indicated, it is challenging to improve animal production efficiency and product quality under…
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Robots for Precision Poultry and Egg Production
Broiler production management with robots
Currently, the United States is the world’s largest broiler producer with the annual sales of $40 billion. Modern broiler production is facing emerging challenges of animal health, food safety, environmental impact, and increasing concern from the general public on animal welfare. Fast growth rate and…
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A Precision Method for Tracking Cage-free Hens on the Floor
Daily routine evaluation of chickens (e.g., broilers and layers) are critical for maintaining animals’ health and welfare in commercial poultry houses. For laying hen production, it is becoming more challenging under cage–free production systems (Figure 1) as compare to conventional caged hens (Figure 2) because birds have freedoms to move…
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Solar Powering Systems for Climate Smart Poultry Production in Georgia
Poultry Production and Sustainability: Currently, the United States (US) is the world’s largest broiler producer and second largest egg producer with the annual sale value of $40 billion. Georgia is the largest poultry producing state in the US. However, the current poultry and egg production is facing emerging challenges such…
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Spray Drones – Regulations and Operational Considerations
Until now, drones have been primarily used for crop monitoring – especially scouting – in agriculture. However, with recent advancements in aerial application technology and the weather challenges limiting timely pesticide applications with ground equipment, the use of drones for spraying pesticides is gaining significant interest in the United States….
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Technology Checklist for Cotton Harvest Preparation
With cotton harvest approaching, growers need to start performing necessary maintenance and adjustments to get the cotton pickers ready. One of the most often overlooked areas during this preparation is harvest technology i.e. the yield monitoring components. As cotton yield data is increasingly being used by crop consultants and growers…
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