Fully automated chicken shed

Project Type

An innovative KNX project to assist a farmer to monitor & control egg production and the wellfair of his poultry.

Project Summary

Installation of KNX has allowed accurate environmental control and minimum direct intervention from operators, giving the chickens a more comfortable and stress free life.
Nominated for KNX project of the year, this innovative use of KNX ticks all the boxes for energy conservation, user experience and flexibility.

Customer requirement

The safety and comfort of the chickens is paramount for the farmer to ensure maximum egg production and therefore profit.
To achieve this the client wanted to install an automated system to control and monitor ventilation, lighting, feeding and access for 12,000 free range chickens.

Solution

KNX is controlling lighting, feed hoppers, temperature, and external doors allowing the chickens free access to outside during daylight. Importantly, KNX is also fulfilling the clients responsibility for monitoring and logging temperature in the shed.

Installation of KNX has allowed accurate environmental control and minimum direct intervention from operators, essentially allowing the chickens to be comfortable with minimum stress without being disturbed by people coming in and out to turn on lights, and fans, open gates, fill feeders.
For the future, the ability to reprogram events has meant that once the installation was complete and the chickens where introduced, adjustments could easily be made to suit requirements without directly disturbing the livestock. The system is such a success that the client is now looking to expand the system to monitor feed silo volume, weight of the chickens and to control multiple sheds remotely from one central location.

Customer Comment

“I was sceptical about the benefits of adding technology to relatively simple operation. Regulation and the desire to expand forced us to take a closer look. I am absolutely delighted with the result, and will roll this out through other poultry farming operations I have in other locations. I’m really excitied about being able to monitor and intervene on the remote operations from my office.”

Technology used

Installation of MT701 control panel, damp environment temperature sensors with various switches
and actuators.