Modern Technologies for Improving Broiler Production and Welfare: A Review

The increasing level of poultry meat production, the lack of human workforce, and the rapid development of information technology have led to the application of precision livestock farming (PLF) systems in the poultry sector, as in other livestock sectors. This review aimed to gather information on the function, applicability, advantages, and limitations of a wide range of precision technologies applicable to broiler production to help farms and researchers in choosing the right methods in practice or creating the basis for further development. Studies as the basis of this review were extracted from more than a hundred peer-reviewed articles including mainly publications of recognised journals and conference proceedings. The results showed that most precision tools are currently undergoing testing and focus on some parameters or a group of parameters which are closely related. Information on the prevalence of PLF systems on broiler farms is not available in the literature. The accessible technologies of different purposes should be combined and connected to enable communication with each other and create a complex, reliable, and precise background for farming. This also facilitates management decisions and the treatment of so-called "Big Data".