Real-time monitoring of poultry activity in breeding farms

Decreasing profit margins and increasing concerns about animal welfare are boosting the interest for the development of monitoring and analysis technologies specifically targeting the poultry meat production process. In this context, this paper addresses monitoring of poultry activity in breeding farms. Specifically, it analyzes the suitability of different vision systems and image processing algorithms with this purpose. These systems and algorithms have been tested in an actual farm during a breeding cycle. Experimental results are presented demonstrating that density-based computations provide the best results, and that they can be carried out using either video or thermographic images, but the latter are a better option because of practical operating reasons related to varying, low light intensity conditions.