>
> > A couple of assumptions:
> > chickens roam around in the barn--not caged like egg layers.
> > Chickens like to eat/drink.
>
> yes/yes/yes

That's good. The last question is whether or not a chicken will move from
one area to another when they get hungry/thirsty? What you want to create is
the impetus for the chickens to move through the system.


>
> > Two sections to the barn area with a chute in between.

You can get rid of the tags below if you use 4 sections and set up the
chutes so that they only go in one direction by making it easy to go
into one end and impossible (or difficult) to go into the other. The reason
for 4 sections is to create a single direction flow. So If you have
a setup like:

---------
| F > H |
|-^---v-|
| H < W |
---------

Where F and W are food and water and the H are holding areas. The arrows are
these one way chutes (simply done by putting a door/gate on the end to block.

Now presume that the want for food and water will motivate the chickens to
go through the chutes. May even entice them with a small amount of bait.
Or entice them with the sound of feed/water.

Measure the chickens in one, any, or all, of the chutes.

The chickens will gravitate naturally from the food pen through the holding
pen to the water pen and back.

each chicken will be measured once per cycle because they have to go through
all 4 pens to get back to that same scale.

The motivation to eat and drink will move all the chickens in the coop though
the system.

Cost will be dividing the coop into the pens, and setting up the chutes.

BTW it's just as feasible to divide the coop up into multiple stacked
horizontal or vertical segments too.

> > Scale is in the chute.
> > chute is designed so only one chicken can be in the chute and on the scale
> > at a time.
> > Water is on one side, food on the other.
> > Every chicken WILL move through the chute at least once a day and get
> weighed.
> > probably multiple weighings per bird, therefore increased accuracy/sample
> > size.
> > Use the scale you've got.
>
> > Now for the pic part--stick a keeloq or other rf ID tag on each bird for
> ID
> > that triggers the scale when it goes through.
> > Track weight gain per bird on an individual basis.
> > Gate the outlet of the chute to a holding area for the nice fat ones, or
> > for the underweight culls, by age of bird, etc.
>
> err.... that is the bad part we are talking more than 1,000 houses
> containing 5,000 birds each ouch :-)

Unnecessary if the cycle is one way.

BAJ