Farms.com Home   News

NC State tackles livestock feed costs with AI, advanced sensors

Healthy, affordable feed is key to the vitality of North Carolina’s $14 billion livestock and poultry production industry. At North Carolina State University, researchers have embarked on a new project designed to help feed mills lower costs while optimizing nutrition.

With seed funding from the N.C. Plant Sciences Initiative, an interdisciplinary team is studying ways to use low-cost, real-time sensors paired with artificial intelligence to make feed milling more precise.

Producing high-quality animal feed relies on effectively sourcing, processing and mixing of plant-based ingredients to meet animals’ nutritional needs for amino acids, energy, protein, lipids and minerals. Currently, many of North Carolina’s 130-plus feed mills rely on historical data about the ingredients, adjusting mixtures from week to week or every two weeks.

Click here to see more...

Trending Video

You Never Want to Find This in a Feed Bin

Video: You Never Want to Find This in a Feed Bin



We found something in bin 12 that no pig farmer ever wants to see. Feed caked up solid in the boot, and when that line is feeding thousands of hogs, you fix it today, not tomorrow. That is just where the day starts. The pigs worked half the gates loose again, so Tork and I are going pen to pen putting them back together. Then it is the barn door repair, rebuilding the wash room, and a walk through a freshly washed barn getting ready for the next group. Pig farming is fixing the same things over and over and keeping the barns running no matter what.