Machine studying might enhance the accuracy of poultry weight forecasts, serving to to unravel one of many fixed challenges going through producers.
Fieldale Farms partnered with Intelia Applied sciences Inc. to automate the method of chicken weight predictions with synthetic intelligence (AI) and machine studying.
“The issue that we try to unravel is an correct method to make weight predictions with out chicken scales and with out guide labor,” Casey Middlebrooks, knowledge analyst and stay manufacturing coordinator, Fieldale Farms, stated on the 2023 Poultry Tech Summit.
Why automate poultry weight predictions
Correct weight predictions assist poultry producers enhance their means to streamline manufacturing on the plant. Higher accuracy improves management and understanding of measurement variation between homes and farms.
Historically, weight forecasts have been calculated manually, a time-consuming course of. Automating poultry weight forecasts would free staff from performing this repetitive job and make predictions extra goal.
“At the moment, the way in which we’re doing it is extremely labor-intensive. Now we have 26 people who spend about 20-40% of their time every week predicting weights,” added Middlebrooks.
Machine studying, a type of synthetic intelligence (AI), makes use of knowledge to be taught a operate that greatest maps inputs to outputs. Put merely, the know-how analyzes and learns from the knowledge collected to make predictions. Over time, predictions change as extra knowledge is added.
“Machine studying is one case the place you want numerous knowledge, however not essentially numerous data,” defined Caroline Forest, vice chairman, enterprise improvement and advertising and marketing, Intelia Applied sciences Inc..
The Fieldale Farms pilot
Over three years, the crew collected weight knowledge from 20,000 poultry flocks over three years.
The outcomes confirmed that the mannequin labored effectively on well-performing flocks however struggled to pinpoint outliers. As well as, prediction efficiency was initially worse than conventional strategies of forecasting.
Sooner or later, Fieldale plans to proceed investigating totally different alternatives to automate on the poultry farm that at present take up giant quantities of manpower and time.
