DEVELOPMENT OF AN AUTOMATIC WEIGHING PLATFORM FOR MONITORING BODYWEIGHT OF BROILER CHICKENS IN COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION

doi:10.15302/J-FASE-2023510

Front. Agr. Sci. Eng.

2023, Vol. 10

Issue (3) : 363-373 https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2023510

RESEARCH ARTICLE

DEVELOPMENT OF AN AUTOMATIC WEIGHING PLATFORM FOR MONITORING BODYWEIGHT OF BROILER CHICKENS IN COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION

Danni ZHOU^1,^2,³, Yi ZHOU⁴, Pengguang HE^1,^2,³, Lin YU⁴, Jinming PAN^1,^2,^3,⁴, Lilong CHAI⁵, Hongjian LIN^1,^2,^3,⁴(

)

¹. College of Biosystems Engineering and Food Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
². Key Laboratory of Equipment and Informatization in Environment Controlled Agriculture, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Hangzhou 310058, China
³. Key Laboratory of Intelligent Equipment and Robotics for Agriculture of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou 310058, China
⁴. Joint Research Center of Zhejiang University and Hefei Shenmu Information Science & Technology Company, Hefei 230601, China
⁵. Department of Poultry Science, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA

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Abstract

● An automatic weighing system for monitoring bodyweight of broilers was developed.

● The new system was compared to the established live-bird sales weighing system data and tested in various conditions.

● The system demonstrated superior accuracy and stability for commercial houses.

Bodyweight is a key indicator of broiler production as it measures the production efficiency and indicates the health of a flock. Currently, broiler weight (i.e., bodyweight) is primarily weighed manually, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and tends to create stress in birds. This study aimed to develop an automatic and stress-free weighing platform for monitoring the weight of floor-reared broiler chickens in commercial production. The developed system consists of a weighing platform, a real-time communication terminal, computer software and a smart phone applet user-interface. The system collected weight data of chickens on the weighing platform at intervals of 6 s, followed by filtering of outliers and repeating readings. The performance and stability of this system was systematically evaluated under commercial production conditions. With the adoption of data preprocessing protocol, the average error of the new automatic weighing system was only 10.3 g, with an average accuracy 99.5% with the standard deviation of 2.3%. Further regression analysis showed a strong agreement between estimated weight and the standard weight obtained by the established live-bird sales system. The variance (an indicator of flock uniformity) of broiler weight estimated using automatic weighing platforms was in accordance with the standard weight. The weighing system demonstrated superior stability for different growth stages, rearing seasons, growth rate types (medium- and slow-growing chickens) and sexes. The system is applicable for daily weight monitoring in floor-reared broiler houses to improve feeding management, growth monitoring and finishing day prediction. Its application in commercial farms would improve the sustainability of poultry industry.

Keywords automatic weighing weight monitoring floor housing uniformity precision poultry farming

Corresponding Author(s): Hongjian LIN

Just Accepted Date: 04 July 2023 Online First Date: 26 July 2023 Issue Date: 20 September 2023

Cite this article:

Danni ZHOU,Yi ZHOU,Pengguang HE, et al. DEVELOPMENT OF AN AUTOMATIC WEIGHING PLATFORM FOR MONITORING BODYWEIGHT OF BROILER CHICKENS IN COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION[J]. Front. Agr. Sci. Eng. , 2023, 10(3): 363-373.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fase/EN/10.15302/J-FASE-2023510
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fase/EN/Y2023/V10/I3/363

Fig.1 Weighing platform (a) and communication terminal (b) of the broiler weighing system.

Fig.2 Weighing system workflow (a) and screenshots of data display on the user interface (b).

Fig.3 The installation of weighing platform (a) and communication terminal (b) in real applications.

Fig.4 Histograms of automatic weighing platform data before (a–c) and after (d–f) POWRI preprocessing protocol for three broiler houses (a and d, b and e, and c and f for the same house, respectively).

Fig.5 Average weight estimation according to the raw data, data after PORWI, and data from the live-bird sales system. Note: the error bars represent the estimated standard deviations.

Tab.1 Pearson’s correlation of standard average weight, estimated weight, and absolute value of error

Fig.6 Scatter plots of standard average weight vs estimated weight (a), absolute value of error vs standard average weight (b), and absolute value of error vs estimated weight (c).

Fig.7 Number of effective weight readings (a), growth curve (b), and daily weight gain (c) of a broiler flock monitored over 29 days.

Tab.2 The standard average weight, estimated weight, absolute error and relative error in different production conditions of rearing season, breed and sex

Tab.3 Comparison of existing products

Fig.8 Common chicken weighing scales: (a) Lumina 47; (b) turkey weighing scales (a part of Lumina 47 and 747 weighing system); (c) turkey weighing scales in a house for turkey production; (d) Swing 100 in a house for turkey production; (e) Swing 20 in a broiler house; (f) Swing 20 in a house for duck production; (g) DWS-3-ZW; (h) DWS-4-ZW; and (i) BAT 2 GSM.

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