New ground-breaking technology will aid chicken farming

Artificial intelligence developed by Australian researchers could revolutionise chicken farming and improve conditions for chooks everywhere.

Scientists at the University of Southern Queensland have cracked the code for camera software that examines how healthy chickens are, working out their weight to within five per cent of their size.

Lead researcher Cheryl McCarthy said the technology was tested during trials at four commercial chicken farms.

"Instead of just being a camera feed that you need to watch, the automatic software is watching that video and is automatically interpreting what's happening," Dr McCarthy said.

The technology reduces the time needed by farmers to manually handle their flock and it's even more exact than the human eye, according to Dr McCarthy.

The research project has been able to track the weight and movement of a flock of chickens using only a camera and image analysis.

Most of the research was carried out on live chickens but some of the work used a stand in artificial chook to test camera images including lighting.

"The software can actually look at the growth of the chickens and their behaviours, as an indication of their health," Dr McCarthy said.

"Having the cameras will just provide extra peace of mind for farmers when they're away from the sheds."

The mechatronics engineer first hatched the idea after talking to producers about reducing their workload.

"Farmers will be walking through sheds to check the chickens, but they can't be there all the time," Dr McCarthy said.

And it might help other farmers.

"This kind of technology could be applied to other livestock species like beef cattle in feedlots," she added.

Victorian poultry farmer Chris Freney who produces around 4.5 million chickens a year, says anything that can help reduce the stress on the chicken is "fabulous."

"The happier they (chickens) are, the healthier they are," he told AAP.

"We do spend a lot of time using our eyes, so this may reduce that time somewhat and alert us sooner than we may have been alerted."

Amanda Olthof from AgriFutures, which funded the project, says the aim is to make the technology available to farmers.

"Using this machine vision could really make some differences to the way that chickens are managed," Dr McCarthy said.

Work is underway to commercialise the technology so farmers can buy the software off the shelf and install it in their sheds.