Daily management support in aviary housing systems for laying hens.

Determining the goals, critical success factors and information needs of poultry farmers working with aviary systems for laying hens reveals that support of the day-to-day management should aim to control the feed consumption and the ambient house temperature, and to detect diseases early. An Egg Weighing And Counting System (EWACS) is developed to count and weigh the eggs in groups of laying nests, and an Individual Poultry Weighing System (IPWS) is developed to measure the body weights and the flock-uniformity of groups of hens. These data are used to ascertain how, where and when the mean body weight, the number of eggs produced and the mean egg weight of a flock of hens must be determined, to supply reliable information for supporting the daily management. A decision support system (DSS) is developed to support the daily management. It contains mathematical curves describing several input and output variables of the production process. The curves can be made farm-specific and can be used as a flockspecific standard in the expert system (ES) incorporated in the DSS. The ES can be used to monitor the daily production process in aviary systems and it uses quantitative and qualitative data to detect aberrations in feed consumption, to control the ambient house temperature and to detect disease