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Georgia Computer Connection Highlights Chicken Displays
SALISBURY, MD Natural
ly, there have been changes in the
industry since the legendary Mrs.
Wilmer Steele began a poultry
revolution with her first broiler
flock 65 years ago at Ocean View,
Del. In this modem age of compu
ter technology the rate of change
can be mind-boggling.
Only five years ago, for exam
ple, it would have taken months of
work and considerable space to
build an electronic control box for
connecting a microcomputer to
sensors in a chicken house like the
model on display during this year’s
Delmarva Chicken Festival at
Salisbury, Md.
The model was built by rep
resentatives of the Engineering
Technology Branch at the Georgia
Tech Research Institute in Atlanta.
A telephone link-up (modem)
allowed chicken festival visitors in
Maryland to monitor environmen
tal conditions in a chicken house
near Gainesville, Ga.
Chuck Ross, a research engineer
at Georgia Tech, accompanied the
computerized model to the
Delmarva festival. He noted that
programmable, computer chips
only two inches square were the
main feature of a control box mea
suring one foot high and two feet
square.
Mr. Ross commented that con
trol units in the box were put
together with parts readily avail
able from several manufacturers.
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Five years ago, many of the parts
would have had to be fashioned
from scratch- and the control box
would have taken up at least three
times more space.
‘The goal of our project is to
provide poultry farmers with a
low-cost monitoring and control
system for broiler houses,” Ross
declared. “Ideally, the system will
produce superior chicken for
consumers.”
Ross said his Poultry Environ
mental Computer System (PECS)
is designed for automatic control
of virtually every environmental
factor in a chicken house - includ
ing temperature, humidity, light
ing, feed and water.
In a typical broiler farm situa
tion, control boxes in each grow
out house would be linked to a cen
tral microcomputer on the farm.
Such a system could simplify man
agement for the farmer, reduce
labor costs and provide almost fail
safe reliability.
Georgia Tech’s eventual goal is
to link the PECS to computer sys
tems in processing plants. This
would allow integrated operators
to have more direct control over
activities of contract operators pro
viding growout services.
The University of Maryland this
year began a modified version of
Georgia Tech’s computerized
chicken house at its Lower Shore
Research and Education Center
facility near Princess Anne.
RS
Model:
442
Route 7, Lebanon, PA 17042
Rt. 419, 1 Mi. West of Schaefferstown, Buffalo Springs
A popular new attraction in the poultry Industry exhibit at the Delmarva Chicken
Festival was the Georgia Tech computer controlled broiler house. Using sensors, the
system is able to monitor the house environment. Chuck Ross, a Georgia Tech
research engineer, worked at the model, shown on the left, and was able to gather
information on a broiler house in Georgia through the computer and telephone lines.
Results to date look promising.
The University of Delaware has
announced plans to have a com
puterized system in place for broil
er production on its Newark cam
pus by this fall. Plans also arc
underway for a similar installation
at its Research and Education Cen
ter located near Georgetown.
About a half-dozen poultry pro
fl*
M |i»
and
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June 30 1988
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SALES ★ SERVICE
ducers on the Eastern Seaboard are
involved with computerized chick
en house operations similar to the
PECS developed at Georgia Tech.
This count includes two broiler
operations in Georgia, one on the
Delmarva Peninsula and three or
four commercial laying flock oper
ators in the Northeast.
Thc Georgia Tech computer
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system was part of the industry dis
play “Yesterday, Today and
Tomorrow” pul together by the
poultry specialists at the Universi
ties of Delaware and Maryland.
This year’s expanded display
showed comparisons of poultry
technology today and in the early
years of the industry.
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