A UK project is deploying IoT to help fight the spread of Avian flu. The FLOCKWISE project is designed to improve animal health monitoring and support higher animal welfare, especially in mixed farming scenarios with multiple breeds with varying welfare and husbandry requirements.

FLOCKWISE brings together regenerative agriculture and farming data specialist FAI with Newcastle University, the UK Agri-Tech Centre and Lakes Free Range Egg Co in a programme financed by Innovate UK, the UK technology development council.

FLOCKWISE stands for ‘Facilitating Learning Opportunities, Cultivating Knowledge and Welfare through Integrated Sensing and Expertise’. It will develop a sensor-embedded flock management system which detects health, welfare and productivity indicators using AI to provide community-based learning to farmers and supply chain.

The project will develop further the capability of FAI’s laying hen management system, BirdBox. This has already demonstrated significant gains in hen health and productivity.

The effort aims to benefit both the welfare of the hens and the long-term viability of the sector, while supporting net zero operations without negatively impacting the industry.

The current BirdBox system combines data collection software with in-house sensor hardware, including an integrated bird weigher, light, humidity, air quality, temperature, feed bin weigh cells, water and power monitoring.

Environmental and production data is integrated to provide the information required to support daily flock management and provides targeted guidance to enable farmer-led intervention when issues arise.

The project will enhance this technology by using advanced sensors to continually monitor the birds through sound technology and analysis of egg quality data, providing further health and welfare information.

The welfare data will be used to build an industry-based learning tool to identify which interventions work to reduce the welfare challenges on laying farms, supporting and upskilling farmers to achieve higher health, welfare and productivity in their flocks.

As well as measuring welfare, the system uses industry-based learning with farmer-facing, low-cost technology to harness data and support production improvement, by enabling farmers to react more quickly to challenges, make informed decisions on flock management and ensure regulatory compliance.

Increased layer farm productivity means there is a potential for gains of £40,000-£110,000 per flock made through better hen health and extension of flock.

This could result in a potential annual increase of 1.7 billion eggs produced in the UK.

Improved sustainability and environmental impact results in increased efficiency with more birds reared, reduced labour and input costs for energy and feed and a projected mortality reduction reducing the overall CO2e per kg of eggs.

Carly Scott, Project Lead at FAI, said: “With BirdBox, we already see the benefit of monitoring the environment and management of the flock. This development enables farmers to better understand the health and welfare of their birds, not only detecting, but preventing problems while supporting increased productivity.”

David Brass, Chief Executive at The Lakes Free Range Egg Co Ltd., said: “This piece of leading-edge innovative research has the potential to change egg-producing poultry welfare and production beyond recognition and into a new exciting era. It is the culmination of 14 years work with FAI on the BirdBox system, finally realising the results we always envisaged.”