Israeli Robots Save Chickens’ Lives

The results so far have been startling: a sharp drop in mortality rates together with significant savings on grain.

Every poultry farmer is familiar with the sight: some chickens grow big and strong, while others simply lie down and die. And they’re also only too familiar with rising grain prices.

“Chickens are the greatest consumers of corn and wheat in the world,” says Israeli entrepreneur Ziv Dubinsky, whose Metabolic Robots startup tackles the interlinked problems of unbalanced consumption and animal welfare.

“They spend up to 45 days in the coops — pullets are removed after only 35 days. The slightest change in their feeding patterns can make a great difference. Corn in particular is susceptible to price fluctuations due to weather conditions. Not enough corn is left for human consumption. Corn producers prefer to sell to poultry farms because it’s more profitable.”

Dubinsky was gearing up to present his invention — an intuitive tool that automatically adjusts the amount of feed available at any given moment — at the 18th International Agritech exhibition in Tel Aviv on May 15-17

The patented device, which can be easily retrofitted onto standard animal-feeding equipment, uses a unique algorithm based on two years of intensive research. In 2009, Dubinsky installed prototype units in about 20 poultry farms in southern and northern Israel that set the rate of meals according to the chickens’ age and breed.

“As the data mounted, I built a table for each breed’s performance versus the size of the food portions. This formed the basis of the algorithm,” he says.

The results so far have been startling: a sharp drop in mortality rates together with significant savings on grain.