Separate weighing of male and female broiler breeders by electronic platform weigher using camera technologies

The body weight of breeding broiler chickens (broiler breeders) is an important control variable used to optimize the amount, quality and fertility eggs being laid. In modern barns, population animals generally supports a female:male ratio 10:1, wherein males females each receive their own food supply. To this supply breeders are weighed using automatic electronic platform weighers weights then classified into cockerel hen categories theoretical growth curves. However, due non-uniform replacement (called spiking) cockerals classification not always correct, causing risk under/over feeding population. overcome challenge, in study we have developed system that integrates weigher with low-cost 3D Kinect camera was employed separate weigh male female under commercial conditions. A novel image processing algorithm proposed. first constructed Height Accumulating Image (HAI) depth locate region interest (ROI) where breeder jumps onto weigher, comb size calculated on RGB as gender classifying feature, finally, adaptive threshold determined by kernel density estimation recent days measurements. results showed enough measurements can be obtained for estimating overall expectation average acceptance rate 77.32%. Based these accepted measurements, accuracy, sensitivity, precision, specificity were 99.7%, 98.82%, 100% respectively.