USPOULTRY and the USPOULTRY Foundation announce the completion of a funded research project at the University of Georgia in which researchers assessed automated tracking of laying hens in cage-free aviary environments. The research was made possible in part by proceeds from the International Poultry Expo, part of International Production & Processing Expo (IPPE). The research is part of the association’s comprehensive research program encompassing all phases of poultry and egg production and processing. A summary of the completed project is below.
Principal investigator Dr. Prafulla Regmi, assistant professor within the Department of Poultry Science at the University of Georgia and colleagues, recently completed a research project with the goal being to track hen movements in a cage-free housing system in a reliable and affordable manner to understand the impacts the system has on welfare and production parameters. Findings indicated that Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) based trackers can be deployed to track resource utilization by cage-free hens. Further, the consistency of the data obtained suggests that results from a subset of hens could be extrapolated to the entire flock.
The research summary can be found on the USPOULTRY website. Information on other association research may also be obtained by visiting the USPOULTRY website, www.uspoultry.org.
