Temperature-Based Monitoring Device for Day-Old Chicks

Abstract

In poultry farm, maintaining the temperature inside the cage is crucial activity that should be given intensive attention by the caretakers and owners. Temperature affects the broiler’s selling weight and health thus increases the operating cost which burdens the owner financially. As far as the reading of the researchers is concerned, there has not been a published research and developed device in the South East Asian countries with the same concept. This study aimed to develop a device that automatically notifies the poultry caretaker if the temperature inside the cage goes down and switches off the light/s when certain temperature is met. The device is comprised of temperature and humidity sensor and modules such as Global System for Mobile communication (GSM), Real-Time Clock (RTC) and Light Crystal Display (LCD). The sensor detects the temperature inside the cage and will evaluate the gathered data using different parameters to automatically switch on/off the lights. If the device detects the desired temperature, it will automatically switch on/off the lights and send a notification message to the poultry caretaker via SMS using GSM module. This study followed the agile methodology with ISO 9126 - based questionnaire and interview as a mode to gather data. For future works, evaluation for the level of acceptability in terms of functionality, usability, efficiency, maintainability and portability is highly recommended. Furthermore, improvement of the system based on the evaluation comments can be explored by other researchers.