Device gauges feed level in silos
Engineers’ invention stands to save poultry industry millions
There are only so many ways farmers can monitor the fullness of their grain silos. They can climb the sides and look in, running the risk of falling or injuring themselves, or they can tap a knuckle on the side of the bin and listen for the echo.
A couple of electrical engineers with no farming background took a different approach and developed a device that uses vibration technology to measure how much feed is in a silo. The device has the potential to shake up the chicken industry. It opens the door to new data, saving hundreds of millions of dollars for the industry, growers and producers say.
Bryon Western, 37, and Edgar Cilio, 39, of Little Bird Systems in Fayetteville, experimented for years, fine-tuning ways to measure feed-bin levels. They also wanted something that was nonintrusive and easy to install. Eventually they developed the FeedCast.
The device has three parts: a solar-powered battery, sensors that magnetically attach along the side of the bin, and a transducer that sits on top and shakes the tower. When turned on, via mobile app, a low frequency similar to a whistle is emitted, rattling the tower, and the sensors pick up the results, accurately showing how much feed is in the bin.
Last week, they demonstrated it a few times on a 10-ton feed bin at a university research farm in Savoy, just west of Fayetteville. The device roared to life a few seconds before dying down.
“Wooooooooooooooo,” Western said, laughing as he imitated the sound.
The technology could mean a lot for the industry. Contract chicken growers often make feed estimates twice a week and can be off, unbeknownst to them, by up to 10,000 pounds, Western said. Ridges along the sides of the feed bin act as a marker, but in some cases the feed can slope and give a false reading.
“Pretty much every farm that we’ve installed on, they’ve told us they don’t have much of an issue running out of feed,” said Western, but in fact, “every one of them has had an issue running out of feed. So they don’t even realize how big of a problem it is most of the time.”
By contrast Tyson Foods, Simmons Foods and George’s Inc. are highly aware. A vital measurement for them is a
healthy feed-conversion ratio from their growers, or how many pounds of feed turns into pounds of chicken. Unexpected feed shortages and other factors interfere with that.
When the feed runs out, growers start panicking. What happens is the chickens inside the large industrial houses start to peck off the ground and are susceptible to mild gut infections, affecting mortality rates and hurting feed-conversion ratios.
When that happens, growers call their suppliers, perhaps argue about whose fault it was and order an emergency feed delivery to make sure the birds are eating properly.
“It’s simply not efficient,” Western said.
“If you can improve the feed conversion ratio by just one point, it saves the industry as a whole about $1 billion a year.”
Compared with the analog readings from the growers, the FeedCast readings are digital and can be collected up to six times a day, offering fresh data for chicken producers.
“We can actually look at those trends and we can look at how the birds are growing and how they are eating and from that we can actually project forward or we can tell them within a few hours or a couple of days in advance, when these things are going to be out of feed,” Western said.
“So they can really optimize all of their delivery logistics based on our information.”
Despite what many think when they first hear of Little Bird Systems, founded in 2012, it was not named for the poultry industry.
Western said they wanted to be a company that delivered new types of information, a “proverbial little bird. Something that’s whispering on somebody’s shoulder telling them a secret.”
When describing how the FeedCast device works to investors, industry professionals or observers with notepads, the engineers consider the wine glass.
A person can ding “the rim of the glass and it rings at a certain tone and that tone changes depending on how much wine is in the glass,” Western said. “We’ve applied that same sort of theory to these giant feed bins.”
Feed bins used by the livestock and poultry industries can typically hold up to 18 tons of feed. Western and Cilio plan to experiment with bins that hold 24 tons soon.
In the early stages of development, Cilio, the chief technology officer, said he would tinker with different frequency profiles and test them on a barrel in his backyard.
An earlier prototype sounded like an 8-bit video game, prompting a farmer to call it “Super Mario Bros.”
“We had a burn barrel filled up with horse bedding,” Cilio said.
“Eventually we figured out what worked best and then we got the lab and everything, so we fine-tuned it even more.”
After years of testing, what made everything gel was a meeting that the two had with a large company — they did not disclose the company’s name — that drew 20 or so people who were interested in the FeedCast.
Cilio said there was one man who plopped a fat folder on the table and said “this is my [return on investment] that we know, if you guys can do what you say we can do, this is how much you can save us.”
Industry professionals have steadily pushed Western and Cilio to provide ever more accurate readings.
They asked them to get within about 10,000 pounds, then 5,000 pounds and then 2,000 pounds, Western said. They are now within 1,000 pounds with the FeedCast’s readings.
So far the Little Bird Systems owners have deployed the FeedCast device on about 10 farms, three in Northwest Arkansas at research farms owned by the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; Simmons Foods; and George’s Inc. They also are testing it on farms in Missouri, Minnesota, Texas and Canada.
They plan to price the systems at a fraction of the cost that competitors using laser or weighted feed-bin systems are asking — somewhere between $1,000 or $1,500 per bin, Western said of the FeedCast.
Little Bird Systems filed a “non-intrusive methodology and system for measurement of dry bulk goods” patent for the device and is expecting the patent to be awarded in the coming months. They plan to be self-sufficient by the end of the year and profitable in 2021.
“There is a chance this year, but we’d be chickens with our heads cut off if we were that busy,” Western said.