As a farmer, you understand how your poultry farm relies on information about the chicken’s behavior and health status to make more complex decisions regarding their treatments and sales. It is a form of record to know and keep track of what works for you.
But in most of our farms, we depend on manual data collection like daily walking around the farm to monitor the behaviors. In some cases, we may fail to read a situation correctly, like in the case of a disease that takes days before they are apparent and will have spread among the other birds.
Using technology designed to perform these tasks, we avoid tedious tasks. We can also make for better poultry production by monitoring and knowing individual chicken body weights in real-time, the chicken stress levels, and how to spot disease in a bird before the entire flock is affected.
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| Poultry production requires use of technology |
PRECISION LIVESTOCK FARMING (PLF)
PLF primarily uses sensors to monitor and detect temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, ammonia levels, automated farm processes, and data-driven decision-making platforms. These sensors, which collect data in real-time (information delivered immediately after collection), will help a farmer know more about his birdhouse environment, bird welfare, precision feeding, and early detection in case of a disease.
Housing Environment Control
Factors like temperature and air quality within and outside the poultry farm (the climate and surrounding vegetation) and management systems (curtains, equipment, and nutrition) play a significant role in the welfare of your poultry stock. The best way to control air quality that contains oxygen for animal metabolism and is a medium for the transport of excess heat, vapor, and gases is to enclose the farm building outside inclement weather conditions completely.
With an environmentally controlled house, the inside conditions of your poultry farm will be maintained near to the bird’s optimum requirement. To regulate the ventilation inside the house, obtain constant air movement and minimize temperature fluctuation in the house.
Behaviour Sensor
The behavior of your chickens on the farm is one of the most critical indicators to assess their welfare correctly. Data on these behaviors must be available to you continuously and precisely for a correct assessment of your chicken behavior.
Behavior sensor devices will monitor the individual behaviors of each chicken on your farm. They will promptly notify you if there is any slight change in normal behavior in your chickens.
Like data collecting tool, which is a lightweight device that slowly travels on rails situated above the flock, gathers information on humidity, temperature, health, and welfare. The data collecting tool takes thermographic images, which will sort livestock from dead and assess dropping color, which can predict disease two or three days earlier.
COOLING AND HEATING SYSTEMS
During harsh weather conditions either when there is a lot of heat or a lot of cold, you should control the temperature of your poultry farm rather than letting the weather determine how your chickens behave. Within a short period, mistakes made due to losing control of the temperature supplied to your flocks cannot be compensated for later.
Heating Systems (Space heater or Radiant brooders)
The amount of heat supplied is very crucial to the overall performance of your chickens, as the chick has the potential for its most rapid rate of growth during the first few days of life. Feed consumption spent on regulating the body temperature rather than growth will reduce the opportunity for producing a happy and healthy chicken.
Choosing either the space heater or the radiant brooder for heat control is unclear. Each has situations it performs effectively. Both the space heater and radiant brooder can use natural gas or propane. The significant difference is that the radiant brooder primarily heats your birds and the floor, which will be helpful for chicks. The space heater heats the air in the building.
Cooling Systems (Evaporative cooling pad or Misting system)
Evaporative cooling systems use heat from the air to vaporize water, resulting in reduced air temperature and increased humidity, making evaporative cooling helpful in humid climates. Evaporative cooling can effectively alleviate or prevent poultry heat stress during hot weather when used in conjunction with air movement.
The difference between the cooling pad and misting system is how water and air interact. The misting system sprays fine water droplets through nozzles into the indoor air. As the droplets evaporate, it removes the heat.
At the same time, the cooling pads drip moisture downward through a porous pad while air flows across the pad into the chicken house. The pads are currently the most effective and efficient systems for cooling poultry houses.
The use of technology in your poultry farm is an activity that will significantly improve the quality and health of happy chickens you produce. It will enhance your returns by minimizing mortality to the least.
With the increase in demand for poultry meat and eggs, you as a farmer need to find a more reliable way to farm your data, not just your chickens, for better poultry production.