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

作　　者：Danni ZHOU Yi ZHOU Pengguang HE Lin YU Jinming PAN Lilong CHAI Hongjian LIN 

机构地区：[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

出　　处：《Frontiers of Agricultural Science and Engineering》2023年第3期363-373,共11页农业科学与工程前沿（英文版）

基　　金：funded by Zhejiang Provincial Key R&D Program(2021C02026);China Agriculture Research System(CARS-40).

摘　　要：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 timeconsuming 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 userinterface.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.

关 键 词：automatic weighing weight monitoring floor housing UNIFORMITY precision poultry farming 

分 类 号：F42[经济管理—产业经济]