Chicken Nest Box That Reports How Many Eggs Each Chicken Lays

[MauriceR]

Then how would you tie the egg laid with the chicken that laid it...especially if you had like 30 birds and 10 nests?

Each bird would have an RFID tag (these cost under 50 cents each). And each nest would have a scale and rfid reader. Then the software would have enough information to say how many eggs each chicken laid. Hopefully that make it clear, but if not trust me there is enough info here to do it as long as the scale and rfid readers work reliably.

There might not be enough data to say exactly which egg came from which chicken, but there might be. These kinds of scales are quite accurate so you'd know exactly how many grams each egg is so you might be able to weigh the eggs afterwards and work out which egg come from which chicken.

 

[lilmillefleur]

This is an interesting idea. I think something like that would be cool! Much easier than trap nests I imagine.

 

[aart]

There might not be enough data to say exactly which egg came from which chicken

I thought that was one of the main goals...or maybe just which hens are laying.
...and to tell you the truth, I didn't realize the scale was actually in the nest.
ADD kicked in and I didn't read it all closely enough.

 

[MauriceR]

I thought that was one of the main goals...or maybe just which hens are laying.
...and to tell you the truth, I didn't realize the scale was actually in the nest.
ADD kicked in and I didn't read it all closely enough.

The main goal was detecting how many eggs each chicken laid. That is different than saying this particular egg came from this particular chicken (this might be possible, but I'd need to do testing). You would certainly be able to know if a particular chicken lays small, medium, or large eggs; and that seems more valuable anyways.

 

[aart]

Well, not really very different, at all...in order to know this:

... how many eggs each chicken laid.

Wouldn't you need to know this?:

... this particular egg came from this particular chicken

 

[Kat2141]

I can see one issue with this in my setup - quite often I see one girl go in the nest, then another, and sometimes a third... I've even seen 4 of them in at one time... dogpile!! and they go out separately.

 

[Trux]

I can see one issue with this in my setup - quite often I see one girl go in the nest, then another, and sometimes a third... I've even seen 4 of them in at one time... dogpile!! and they go out separately.

wouldn't it be a chickenpile?mine do this too

 

[Kat2141]

wouldn't it be a chickenpile?mine do this too

oh! you got me! haha

 

[dunnmom]

Sounds interesting! I personally wouldn’t have a use for it, with my little backyard flock of “pets”, but people with lots of chickens who sell eggs or is a breeder might. Or someone who just likes and can afford cool contraptions for their coops. You could market it as an already assembled nestbox to add to a coop (like the roll-away boxes) or even a kit for people to add to an existing laying area. No one really likes a free-loader, and being able to tell the productivity of each hen does have a place in commerce, even smaller scale commerce.

The more affordable the price point and practical the design, the more people will buy such a thing. I would agree that you would have to just jump in and build a prototype. Only way to really know if it would work. I think the monitoring app is also a cool idea. If you don’t develop software yourself, you’ll have to hire a developer, which might actually be one of the biggest expenses, unless you have a buddy who will do it pro bono.

 

[dunnmom]

Have you visited with a commercial egg producer about this yet? Sometimes it’s difficult to get information without giving your idea away, but it can be done. My husband is working on his own idea that would be for people’s homes, but he was able to get all sorts of helpful information from companies that do something similar commercially, without being specific as to what he’s developing.