Cluck-tastic Innovation: Get Egg-cited for a Smart Chicken Crib!

This new company uses a special “AI helper” called Albert Eggstein to count eggs & watch for killing animals around

Glenn Burgess

Eggs are really important for many people in the United Kingdom. In a year, a typical British person is believed to consume nearly 300 eggs, either on their own or in things like cakes and other foods made with eggs.

Some experts even say we are now in the “Age of the Chicken,” and chickens will be one of the most significant things left behind by our civilisation, at least from a geological perspective.

In the UK, the food system is quite centralised, which means that even small problems can quickly turn into big issues. For instance, earlier this year, egg prices became extremely high.

To combat supply chain problems, some households have gone beyond the idea of getting food from local farms and started raising their own chickens in their backyard. This became more popular during the pandemic and at the beginning of the year due to rising prices.

However, raising a group of chickens can be difficult and have unexpected problems. That’s where a new startup called Coop comes in, and it’s coming at just the right time.

Coop was started by AJ Forsythe and Jordan Barnes in 2021. They’ve packed all the necessary smart home software into a backyard chicken coop.

Barnes can’t resist adding some chicken-related humor to everything they do. You’ll find chicken puns on their website, in their product names, and even in her title at the company. She’s the CMO, which stands for chief marketing officer, but she jokes it also means chicken marketing officer.

Barnes and co-founder Forsythe invited Popular Science to a rooftop patio on the Upper East Side to check out a fully set up Coop and discuss the company’s tech over a “chick-chat.”

They didn’t just wing it, though. They’ve put in over 10,000 hours designing the Coop. They even got help from Fred Bould, who previously worked on Google’s Nest products, to imagine the Coop of the future.

Coop’s main office in Austin is home to about 30 chickens, and both Barnes and Forsythe have their own chickens at home. Spending time with these birds has taught them a lot, and they’ve both turned into true “chicken people.”

On average, a regular chicken will lay about five eggs each week, but this can vary depending on the weather and their position in the pecking order.

The higher-ranked chickens at the top of the pecking order tend to lay more eggs because they get more food. Barnes explains, “They won’t break rank on anything. Pecking order is set.”

Chickens are not just about laying eggs; they can also help with composting dinner scraps. Barnes humorously mentions, “Our chickens eat like queens. They’re having sushi, Thai food, gourmet pizza.”

The first-generation smart Coop package includes a chicken house, a wire fence, remotely controllable lights, and a set of cameras. To get it up and running, all a potential owner needs is Wi-Fi and about 100 sq feet of grass.

Barnes explains, “Chickens tend to stick together. You want them to roam around & graze a little bit, but they don’t need sprawling plains to have amazing lives.

We’ve put a lot of thought into the hardware design, all backed by a deep understanding of chicken needs, like the roosting bar dimensions, ventilation, and airflow.”

They even spent four weeks creating a compostable, custom-fit poop tray because they learned from market research that cleaning the coop was a major concern for people interested in having chickens.

Just before the Coop was about to go into production a few months ago, they discovered that the lower bars on the wire cage had gaps that a determined raccoon could slip through, so they reworked the design for added safety.

The company’s goal is to build a tech ecosystem that simplifies chicken-raising, especially for beginners and the “chicken-curious.” Interestingly, 56 percent of their customers have never raised chickens before, highlighting their success in making chicken-keeping accessible to newcomers.

The heart of Coop’s offering is its AI software, known as Albert Eggstein, which plays a crucial role in detecting both the chickens and potential threats in the vicinity. Barnes emphasises, “This is what makes the company valuable.”

The camera not only identifies the number of chickens in the frame but can also distinguish one chicken from another. It uses these observations to provide insights through an accompanying app, similar to how Amazon’s Ring functions.

For experienced chicken owners, being vigilant about predators is of utmost importance, and Coop’s software excels in this area. It can accurately categorise nearby predators, ranging from muskrats to hawks to dogs, with a remarkable 98-percent accuracy.

Forsythe explains, “We’ve developed a lot of software for the cameras, delving into computer vision and machine learning for remote health monitoring and predator detection. We can alert you, for example, if raccoons are detected outside, and automatically close the door to keep all four chickens safe.”

The Coop system operates with two cameras, one placed outside in the chicken run and the other inside the roost. In the morning, the roost door is automatically raised 20 minutes after sunrise, and at night, a special feature called “nest mode” can inform owners if all their chickens have returned to their roost.

The computer vision software is trained using a vast database of around 7 million images. Additionally, there’s a sound detection feature that can analyse chicken moods and behaviors by listening to the pitch and pattern of their clucks, chirps, and alerts.

This system can compile the daily activity into weekly summaries and notify chicken owners about important events, such as the presence of a raccoon visiting for the past three nights or when eggs are ready to be collected.

A unique feature they’ve developed, known as “Cluck talk,” can measure the volume of chicken sounds to make a general assessment of whether the chickens are hungry, happy, broody (when they just want to sit on their eggs), or in danger.

There are many chicken-specific behaviors that they can use to create models. Forsythe explains that in about 6 to 12 months, they plan to introduce remote health monitoring.

This feature will be able to alert you, for example, if a chicken named Henrietta hasn’t had water in the last six hours and seems a bit lethargic. They’re also working on a telehealth service that could connect chicken owners with vets for communication and video sharing.

The company began full-scale production of their first-generation Coops last week. They’re producing the structures in Ohio using a specialized process called rotomolding, similar to how Yeti coolers are made. They have 50 beta customers who have signed up to get Coops, and they’re offering early-bird pricing at £1,995.

Similar to models like Peloton and Nest, customers will also need to pay a monthly subscription fee of £19.95 for access to the app features, including the AI tools. Alongside the Coops, the company offers services like chicken-sitting, cleverly named “chicken Tenders.”

Looking ahead to the second generation Coops, Forsythe and Barnes are considering new ideas. They might create a larger version (the current one can hold four to six chickens) or one with a water gun to deter hawks. It’s worth noting that the chickens themselves are sold separately.