Caroline Forest, Chief sales and Marketing officer Fabled American management consultant and author, Peter Drucker, once said, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” This statement rings true for every organization in today’s data-driven business world, where the approach one takes to measure and manage the tremendous amounts of information can make a huge difference in a business’ success. Similarly, in the poultry industry, there is a sea of data. Hidden in this data are critical insights that present significant opportunities for farmers to improve their business. It is only by effectively gathering and meaningfully analyzing this information that livestock producers can make smarter decisions that drive poultry performance and generate cost savings.
But, how can poultry producers take advantage of this ‘big data’?
Intelia, a Montreal-based agritech company, provides a fitting reply to this question with its cutting-edge sensors, remote data management software, and data-powered predictive algorithms. Combined, these offer a powerful and integrated decision-making system that helps poultry producers succeed and improve profitability by applying best practices consistently. Intelia’s innovative IoT devices and sensors for the poultry house help farm owners keep track of metrics such as static pressure, bird weight, water usage, humidity, and feed-bin weight, along with light, temperature, ammonia levels in real-time, making it easier for them to optimize their production resources.
Caroline Forest, chief sales and marketing officer of Intelia, says, “Production sensors have been sitting in poultry houses for years. What we realized is that the grower has been sitting on an unused goldmine all this time.”
Since there is a lack of an effective tool, farmers do not know how to use this data to generate cost savings. This is where Intelia’s offerings make a difference. Intelia’s devices churn raw data from the sensors and use sophisticated AI algorithms to transform it—in real-time—into palatable information that poultry producers can act upon and use to grow healthier birds at a better price.
According to Forest, poultry farming is getting increasingly complex for growers, especially with the industry’s transition toward antibiotic-free production. “Poultry owners must be able to detect early or prevent the onset of diseases for birds because using antibiotics to treat the birds will force them to downgrade their produce, selling it for lesser price,” Forest adds. This requires a high level of attention to detail, and not many poultry producers have the time or knowledge needed to analyze accurately the situation building up. Intelia’s devices that offer real-time data and analytics can be used for early-warning in case of a poultry disease before the problem spreads too far. By evaluating environmental factors such as the temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and brightness in the poultry house, and using algorithms to analyze them, Intelia’s sensors detect even the slightest alterations early on.
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Production sensors have been sitting in poultry houses for years. What we realized is that the grower has been sitting on an unused goldmine all this time
Moreover, Intelia’s technology also proves to be a boon for poultry processors that face the challenge of getting the right bird weight at the processing plant. With little visibility into what’s going on at the farm, these processors rely on the manual weighing of a few birds seven days prior to catching in order to guess the weight of the birds when they get to the plant. “That prediction is about as accurate as flipping a coin, and often leads to a very challenging planning process,” explains Forest. Intelia’s system, which has innovative predictive models, allows processors to see a dynamic prediction of bird weight over 14 days. So, as the chicken grows, processors always have 14-day visibility into what the birds are going to look like, and can predict the harvest and use it to maximize their revenue.
Even after developing such innovative products today, Intelia always traces back to its roots of being an electronic controller manufacturer, known for its robust technologies. Back in 2015, the company saw an unmet need in the poultry industry to help producers tackle new production challenges with advanced analytics and was the first firm to offer a complete farm data solution. Going forward, Intelia intends to continue enhancing its software solution and predictive analytics models to integrate customer feedback and provide additional value to its customers. “Data is only as good as what one can do with it. It needs to be actionable. And to be able to act on data, you need to analyze it,” informs Forest. The real-time capture, analysis, and interpretation of data generated by live operations is the next step in boosting profitability for the poultry industry. And, there is no doubt in this context, Intelia is leading the way!
