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Chai, Lilong
A machine vision technology for tracking cage-free hens’ pecking behavior and damages
Summary
Severe pecking is one of the primary welfare issues in commercial cage-free hen housing systems, an emerging egg production system in in Europe and the North America, as it can seriously reduce the well-being of birds and cause economic losses for egg producers.
Situation
It is predicted that 70% of total laying hens in the US (320 million hens) and 100% of hens in EU countries (370 million hens) will be under cage-free production by 2030. While severe pecking has been estimated to occur in 40 to 50% of cage-free flocks, it is one of the primary reasons for increased mortality (e.g., chicken mortality is doubled in cage-free system as compared to conventional caged system). Therefore, egg producers in US and EU countries are desperate for solutions to address the severe pecking and high mortality issues in the cage-free production systems.
Response
A solution for minimizing the pecking damages and cannibalism is early detection of pecking behaviors and injury, elucidating the cause, and subsequently preventing it from further spread. Early studies have shown that poultry welfare evaluation could be conducted with computer or machine vision-based methods. However, no existing system/method can track, identify, and locate individual birds with pecking behavior and subsequent injury. Dr. Lilong Chai’s lab in UGA’s poultry science department developed a deep learning-based imaging system for monitoring chickens’ pecking behaviors automatically. The system has reached a precision of 85.2% in research poultry facilities. Further studies are ongoing in commercial production systems. This study was among the first to apply artificial intelligence to track problematic behaviors of cage-free hens.
Impact
The market value of US table egg productions was $13 billion (i.e., 110 billion eggs laid by 320 million layers) in 2022. The new machine vision technology developed by Dr. Chai’s lab at UGA provides a basis for developing a real-time automatic system for tracking pecking behaviors and damage in commercial cage-free houses to protect the health and welfare of hundreds of millions laying hens in the USA and beyond.
State Issue
Animal Production
Details
- Year: 2023
- Geographic Scope: International
- County: Clarke
- Location: College Station, Athens
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Program Areas:
- Agriculture & Natural Resources
Author
Collaborator(s)
CAES Collaborator(s)
- Applegate, Todd
- Ritz, Casey W.
Research Impact