How about vision based.
Is the visual size related to the weight?
Ie, a computer with a image sensor
could "recognize" the checken, and "guess"
the weight. With a little study, a neural network
can be driven from a "CMOS" sensor, and the guesses
would be pretty darn accurate.

I know this sounds high-tech, but image sensors
are cheap, and I can do the processing in hardware
using a fpga, and a single SDRAM part.

Its very simlar to technology we are doing
for facial recognition (In humans).

You put a little "box" in each check house, and
its always looking at a "area".  Maybe add a motor so
we cover a larger area.

Tell me the environment of your checken coop, and
I may be able to simpyfy.

Right now, sounds like a "million-gate" part. (Altera or Xilinx)
a photbit sensor, and a "ehternet" interface or modem.

Data would be tablated on a web page.

Cost of the unit is driven by volume(How many you need),
and cost of the FPGA. (Also drive by volume).

Also the NRE.

If you give me more info on chickens I'll see if I can figure out a
simple way.


At 08:24 PM 2/10/00 -0800, you wrote:
>ok a thousand dollars to anyone who provides a solution which I use,
>poultry industry, very cost driven, every cent counts as the proffit margin
>on a bird is in the fractions of a cent per pound.
>
>problem:
> finding the average weight of about 10,000 birds in a chicken house a day
>before market, old solution wiegh out a hundred or so by hand... average the
>numbers.
>this is to make sure they are at optimum wieght to goto market to provide
>maximum proffit.
>
>how do you do it electronicly with little human effort?
>at first we tried an electronic scale placed on the floor, hoping that
>enough chickens would step on it... problem is chickens are
>territorial...... pretty much only one or two chickens step on it...
>
>and it has to be relitivly simple...i.e. no large robotic vacume cleaner
>robots that rove around and suck up chickens, weigh them, and spit them out
>:-)
>
>any ideas?
>oh and my fathers company is www.Mountaire.com  for anyone interested.
>
>Ryan

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