Monitoring poultry health, implications for welfare and antimicrobial stewardship
Updated: 3 days ago
Health monitoring in poultry production remains a significant challenge with important implications for productivity, animal welfare and antimicrobial stewardship. The first week of a chick's life is critical to flock performance, yet current industry practice relies largely on monitoring water consumption and routine visual inspection. These methods are reactive, often identifying problems only after disease has become established, resulting in reduced growth, increased mortality and higher treatment costs.
Part of the DEFRA funded ADOPT programme (delivered by Innovate UK), poultry farmer Ben Hay is trialling innovative new technology. The project will evaluate the Aviasenze automated activity and welfare monitoring system under commercial farming conditions. This will determine whether earlier detection of changes in flock behaviour can support more timely management decisions. By identifying subtle behavioural changes before they become visible through conventional monitoring, the system has the potential to enable earlier investigation, targeted treatment, environmental adjustments or flock management interventions. Thus helping to improve bird health while reducing unnecessary antibiotic use.
The project will be independently evaluated by Crop Innovations, ensuring the technology is assessed under practical commercial conditions and that findings are communicated in an impartial, farmer-focused manner. Crop Innovations will work closely with poultry producers to generate robust evidence on the operational, economic and welfare impacts of adopting automated flock monitoring, while disseminating the results through farmer networks, demonstration activities and industry engagement.
By combining an independent on-farm evaluation with practical knowledge exchange, the project will provide the evidence needed for poultry producers to make informed decisions about adopting precision livestock monitoring technologies. The findings will support improved productivity, animal welfare and environmental sustainability while helping accelerate the uptake of innovative management practices across the UK poultry sector.
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