Sustainable poultry farming: A concept of IoT-based poultry management system for small-scale farmers

Conventional poultry management techniques are failing to meet increased demand for poultry products as the population continues to grow. As a result, this issue has become a major concern for small-scale farmers, particularly those in low-income areas, in terms of food security. One of the main reasons for this is that the farmers rely on intensive farming methods which are inefficient for automating daily poultry operations. However, intensive farming methods pose major environmental concerns to ecosystems and poultry health. Also, the environmental conditions, welfare, and productivity of poultry operations may be harmed by the global climate crisis and poultry waste products can be disastrous to poultry health and need to be managed effectively. This demands for enhanced poultry management systems to alleviate the environmental conditions and boost optimal poultry well-being. This paper presents a compact, low-cost internet of things-based poultry management system for a small –scale farmer. The system employs a synergistic combination of cloud and Internet of Things technologies to monitor and regulate temperature, humidity, water level, ammonia gas concentration, and lighting systems in real time. The hardware prototype was successfully implemented and tested at the Obasanjo poultry farm home in Nigeria. The experimental results demonstrate that the daily temperature is maintained between 27℃ and 32℃. The relative humidity ranges from 71% to 72%, and the ammonia gas (NH3) level increased intermittently for the first three days before remaining steady, reaching a maximum of 30 ppm. The illumination is optimally adjusted using a pre-configured algorithm to promote maximum egg production and poultry health.