Two Texas entrepreneurs spent 10,000 hours developing this smart chicken coop project. A superfluous invention or a mini-revolution for poultry fans?
AJ Forsythe and Jordan Barnes are two childhood friends who grew up in the land of chicken, more precisely in the shadow of the great KFC that Americans love so much. Their idea of a new generation chicken coop is therefore rather logical when you really think about it. Raising poultry requires a few skills that not everyone may have. An AI-powered chicken coop could be a turnkey solution for families wanting to self-produce their own meat or eggs. Connected litter boxes already exist, why shouldn’t chickens also have the right to advances in technology?
Making chicken farming easier in the USA
Currently, an estimated 10 to 15 million people raise backyard chickens, which equates to 4% of the total population. For Forsythe, this is apparently not enough and he is thinking big since he aspires to increase this rate to 20%. He told the media TechRadar : “ We spoke with people who want to raise poultry, but don’t know where to start “.
Barnes, his partner, explains that in most cases people first get motivated by starting to produce vegetables, such as lettuce or tomatoes. For her, this is the first step in the journey towards poultry farming. Their speech is well rehearsed, and the two friends clearly want to disrupt the industrial chicken production chain thanks to their invention. It’s presumptuous, but we can’t take away a certain form of audacity from them. For Barnes, there is a move to play. The conditions for raising chickens in the food industry are disastrous, it is today an open secret, even in the USA.
A 2.0 henhouse with advanced features
Soberly named “Coop”, this high-tech cabin can accommodate up to six chickens. It is equipped with surveillance cameras, soon to be powered by solar energy, which constantly monitor the exterior and interior of the structure. These are not simple cameras. Their operation is based on AI and they were developed using machine learning. In fact, a database of 7 million different images constituted their training, which allows them to automatically detect the presence of predators.
The chicken coop identifies each hen individually and monitors their behavior. This monitoring system also works with audio detection, a feature called “Cluck Talk” that can recognize up to seven types of clucks. These natural vocalizations of birds indicate their state (fear, hunger, etc.) and technology can translate them into real language.
With a size of around 9 m2, Coop was designed to be installed anywhere, as long as there is a Wi-Fi network nearby. Indeed, without it, it will just be a simple chicken cage, currently sold for $1,995 on the official website. An apparently promotional price, since an amount of $2,945 appears crossed out in red to the right of the store page. An innovative structure at a not really ridiculous price.
Sources: The Smart Coop, TechRadar
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