The Digital Future of Poultry Production

Booster Blog

The Digital Future of Poultry Production

The International Production & Processing Expo (IPPE) is the largest poultry, meat and feed industry event in the world. Bringing together the leaders, experts and visionaries across all industries, it’s a great place to find out what’s coming up.

Looking at the talks in the 2019 calendar shows that innovative technology is very much the trend for the poultry industry. There are over seventy technology focussed talks at this year’s event, so we’ve picked out our top three innovations to watch for poultry produces across the world.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI provides some great benefits to the industry, offering increases in both production through quality of life improvements and improved processing efficiency.

When it comes to production, AI systems can be used to monitor and adjust the environment inside of houses in real-time. Taking the input from different sensors throughout your facility, the AI can ensure that the each is at optimal conditions for production. This ensures that minor issues are dealt with before they become problems, proactively managing houses to ensure peak production and save money in the process.

Processing can also become more efficient by using AI to process either meat.

Robotics

The Gribbot, by SINTEF, is a chicken breast processing robot which can prepare a single breast in 2-3 seconds. This is made possible by advanced machine visioning technology, advanced robotics and a complex AI system powering it all. It’s estimated that a single Gribbot could replace up to thirty human operators. This represents a great increase in efficiency for the industry as well as substantial cost savings.

In an industry which is full of repetitive tasks which need high levels of accuracy, poultry production is the perfect environment for innovative robot use.

In the poultry house tasks such as cleaning & sanitizing, collecting eggs and checking birds need to be done over and over… but with care. That’s where a robot really comes to the fore.

There are many great examples of robots in the poultry house, but our favourite has to be Spoutnic, a robot created by French company Tibot. Once released within a flock, Spoutnic moves around, ensuring that chickens are encouraged to exercise and discouraged from laying down. This has led to measurable benefits in both reduced chicken mortality and increasing their general health.

3D Printing

An established technology at a domestic level already, 3D printing is now becoming a viable and useful technology in industrial settings. The University of Western Australia has successfully developed a printer which uses a metal powder which can create plastic or metal parts. This is much quicker and cheaper than sourcing the part from a supplier and waiting on delivery. This helps reduce costs and increases efficiency easily.

Beyond machine parts, it’s now possible to print poultry parts as well! When livestock is injured through the loss of body parts, feet or beaks for example, it is mostly fatal for the animal. But not so with privately owned animals where this technology has been embraced for some time. By printing replacement feet or beaks for poultry we can offer real, lifesaving solutions to serious injuries. Restoring the quality of life to the bird and keeping it within the flock.

Are you heading to IPPE 2019? It’s on between the 12th and 14th of February, in Atlanta, Georgia. If you’re coming, then head along to see the Bolidt team on stand 5559 and have a chat with Dennis van Grevenbroek. He’ll be happy to let you know what our technology is doing to keep the poultry industry moving.