Bird-e – The Poultry E-Feeding System: Basis and Applications

Extremely interesting article, thank you. I have some questions about the RFID chip. How time consuming was it to attach the chip? How secure is the chip? Is it lost easily, did you experience such losses in your evaluation? Would the chips - after removal and disinfection - by re-usable? Thanks in anticipation, Martin

Attaching the RFID chip takes only a few seconds per animal. We do not observe chip loss, even during 5-7 weeks production cycles (not more in any case than with traditional wingbands). We reuse the chips several times after removal and disinfection, but we test the chips before reusing them in case some are worn out.

The speed of development of individual feed intake in chickens is extremely important for poultry breeding. one of the main drawbacks of feed intake recorded in individual cages was the lack of social stimulation. This was the main reason why we developed a similar feedin station (without body weight recording) some years ago (see Bley T.A.G., 2003; Bley and Bessei, 2008). https://opus.uni-hohenheim.de/volltexte/2003/29/pdf/Dissertation_Bley.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5640098_Recording_of_Individual_Feed_Intake_and_Feeding_Behavior_of_Pekin_Ducks_Kept_in_Groups In contrast to the present feeder station our feeders are aligned on raws where the birds can see each other while feeding and are stimulated by social facilitation. This has been suggested important in ducks but also in chickens. We also used a bird to feeder place ratio of 10 : 1. I wonder whether the special placement of the individual feeders influence feeding behaviour.