Fundamental Study on Simple Chicken Robot for Promoting Chicks’ Feeding Behavior

Here we report our research efforts on farm mechanization. From the animal welfare point of view, there have been increased demands for cage-free farming of poultry birds such as egg laying hens. However, cage-free operations generally require more labor than to rear hens in battery cages.When a flock of newly hatched chicks are introduced into a cage-free shed, for example, farmers need to teach them until they learn where to find food. The purpose of this study is to apply robotic technologies to help cage-free farming operations. Broody hens are known to teach their chicks the location of food by pecking food on the floor while making a specific sound known as a food call. In this study, a robot with a chicken-like simplified appearance has been made. The robot mimics chicken’s food pecking by shaking its head up and down using a DC servo motor. It also plays back chicken’s food call from an internal speaker. Experiments are being conducted to see the effect of the robot on promoting chicks’ feeding, and promising results are being obtained.