Even the lowly backyard chicken is being touched by the IoT.
As a backyard chicken enthusiast in my spare time, I was pleasantly surprised to find that other technology-minded folks are interested in chickens too.
A simple Internet search revealed a ‘Chicken Tender’ project recently presented at the Intel IoT Roadshow in Seattle that I wish were already commercialized! This ingenious system tracks and monitors egg laying for individual chickens in a coop using RFID tagging, a USB digital scale plus sensors to monitor the environment — with the data then stored in an IoT cloud analytics platform.
According to the project page, APIs are used for gathering local weather forecasts. All of the data can then be analyzed to determine which chickens laid which egg, and other interesting information.
I would absolutely use a system like this in my two coops that house a number of breeds including large fowl Cochins, Ameraucana, Sicilian Buttercup, Buff Orpington, Plymouth Barred Rock and one regal Frizzle rooster.
I also found an Arduino-based chicken coop door controller that another techie chicken owner developed for his family’s flock of ex-battery hens.
It’s my goal for this year to incorporate some technology into my coops, so watch my blog for updates!
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Hi Ann,
I have the automated coop door opener. It works like a dream. We get about 18 eggs a day and have a lot of happy customers. Nothing like farm fresh eggs.