Design and prototyping of an automated curtain for a poultry house.

Abstract

The global poultry industry has more than 23 billion birds and growing more than 5 times in the last 50 years. Global egg production has reached to 73 million tons and poultry meat production has reached to 100 million tons. Between 1961 and 2010, per capita global egg consumption increased from 4.55 kg to 8.92 kg and poultry meat consumption increased from 2.88 kg to 14.13 kg (Alexandratos and Bruisma, 2012). This growth rate is due to a variety of factors, such as improved genotypes, advances in feed and feeding and vertical integration. Such factors make the poultry industry more efficient, effective in terms of costs and productive than other sectors. Factors that have accelerated the demand for animal-origin foods include population growth, living standards and national income growth. Uganda’s total poultry population is estimated at about 47.6 million chickens and of this, 87.7 percent is free-range local breeds. Commercial poultry production with exotic breeds is also increasing as seen from 1,536000 in 2008 to 5,852000 in 2017. Out of 47.7 million chickens, 37.4 million are for the source of meat and the central districts are owning the highest share of exotic breeds. The reason for this is the high rate of urbanization and, the eastern region has mainly local breeds.