Movable Poultry Fencing Solution for Pasture-raised Chickens
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Pasture-raised chicken farming is becoming increasingly popular to meet the demands of a changing consumer market for healthier and more sustainable produce. Current pasture-raised chicken practices include manually moving electric poultry fencing–which protects chickens from predation–on a regular basis. However, these current methods of rotating pasture-raised chickens costs farmers valuable time and money, prevents chickens from consistent access to fresh pasture, and contributes to a degradation of soil health due to overgrazing. In partnership with Pie Ranch, our team is automating the rotational grazing of pasture-raised chickens and irrigation of chicken-fertilized soil by integrating the fencing with a lateral movement irrigation system (LMS). Throughout the process, our team used 3D modeling software, prototype construction, and various field simulation methods to understand the effectiveness and possible failure modes of our design. Our design includes a fencing structure, which is supported by the span beam of the LMS by cables, to contain and protect chickens in front of the LMS’s direction of travel such that irrigation of the pasture by the LMS takes place after the pasture has been impacted by the chickens. This ensures proper deposition of nutrients from chicken manure into the soil to maximize soil health. Experimental results indicate that the LMS-fence integration solution is not only safe and viable, but that the design will greatly reduce the time spent by a person to rotate the chickens and irrigate the impacted pasture. The current rotating cadence is once per week, and it takes a farmhand nearly three hours to move the fencing enclosure. Our solution has a rotating cadence of once per day and requires no person hours to move the fence. Our solution increases the area of fresh pasture the chickens have access to by seven-fold. The integration of our fencing solution with the LMS will significantly increase both the productivity of farmers and improve the health of chickens to all farmers who have access to an LMS and pasture-raise their poultry. This solution has the potential to greatly improve pasture raising poultry for small scale farms and results in healthier chickens and healthier soil.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Publication date | March 20, 2024; 2024 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Sperka, Frankie |
|---|---|
| Author | Chou, JR |
| Author | Woong, Denny |
| Author | Sangster, Dominic |
| Advisor | Cohen, Shoshanah |
| Advisor | Barnard, Nathaniel |
| Advisor | Lawson, Jered |
| Advisor | Diggs, Leonard |
Subjects
| Subject | Pasture ecology |
|---|---|
| Subject | Pasture chickens |
| Subject | Renewable agriculture |
| Subject | Mechanical engineering |
| Subject | Agriculture |
| Subject | Farming |
| Genre | Text |
| Genre | Report |
Bibliographic information
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- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC).
Preferred citation
- Preferred citation
- Sperka, F., Chou, J., Woong, D., and Sangster, D. (2024). Movable Poultry Fencing Solution for Pasture-raised Chickens. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/rw349yy0322. https://doi.org/10.25740/rw349yy0322.
Collection
ME170 Mechanical Engineering Design
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