Glacier FarmMedia – One could say the origin story of the robotic Rova Barn began with a young kid on a dairy farm who wanted to go to the beach, or on a family road trip, or just to Grandma’s for Sunday dinner. But milking chores had to trump adventure.
“We didn’t go on holidays when I was a kid,” said Daniel Badiou, a fifth-generation farmer who founded Ukko Robotics with partner Katrina Jean-Laflamme.
A mechanically minded kid, he realized that without automation, farmers like his parents would always be tied to the farm and the milking schedule.
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Why it matters: Automating the movement of outdoor coops can prevent over-grazing and save labour for pastured poultry operations.
Today, of course, robotic milkers exist. And now, thanks to Badiou and Jean-Laflamme, pastured poultry can also benefit from automated living with the Rova Barn.
Badiou said he was a tinkerer as a kid and wanted to make his mechanical ability more official. He went into mechanical engineering with a focus in mechatronics to get better at building things, and so he could help farmers be more efficient.
He returned to the family farm each summer and took on projects. In 2015, the project was raising pastured chickens. Internet research turned up mobile coops farmers could push around like wheelbarrows.
“It might be fun for a couple of months, but I’m not going to do this for 10 or 20 years,” Badiou said. “Let’s automate it.”
He built a prototype robo-coop in his dad’s workshop over a weekend and put it to work. He realized he might have a bankable product. Jean-Laflamme joined Badiou in Manitoba, and together they began to perfect their prototype.
The Rova Barn is a programmable self-moving, self-watering, self-feeding and temperature-regulating chicken coop. The barn creeps along over its assigned pasture at a rate programmed based on stocking rate and grass conditions. This allows chickens to get fresh grass and bugs regularly and prevents overgrazing.
When the barn reaches the end of the pasture, it moves itself over and tracks in the opposite direction.
Badiou and Jean-Laflamme know the units work because they raise their own chickens and pigs in their prototypes. They sell the meat and use the income to continue research and development.
“I’m a strong believer that if it’s going to be built by someone, you have to test it so you really know what’s all in it,” Badiou said.
Pastured poultry and pork remain niche ventures in Manitoba, where chicken is supply managed and non-quota farmers are limited to fewer than 1,000 birds.
However, interest in raising poultry and pork on grass is rising along with interest in regenerative agriculture, Badiou said.
Some regenerative vegetable farms, for instance, like to integrate animals into their farms. A vegetable farm may run the Rova Barn and chickens on a piece of their land one year, and then plant that area with vegetables the next.
The fertilizer the chickens add is evident. Badiou’s mom kicked a prototype Rova Barn off her lawn after it left lush green rectangles everywhere.
Interest in pastured poultry is higher in Ontario, which has an established artisan poultry framework, and in the U.S., where many states farm chickens outdoors year-round, said Badiou.
Ukko Robotics may be a bit early on the scene, he admitted, but when the time comes, they’ll be ready.
“(Finding mentors is) tougher than you think, especially in Manitoba,” said Badiou, but happy customers make it worthwhile. So does seeing the pigs and chickens excited for fresh grass and bugs.
“Just how happy they were, it kind of reinforced what we were doing,” Badiou said.
This August, Ukko Robotics branched out to add “smart locker” Vendii to its product line. Vendii was designed as a solution for farmers to direct-sell product and automate customer pickups. It involves lockers with multiple locked compartments that can be opened with a code sent to a buyer. The lockers can be temperature controlled.
Ukko is beta testing Vendii ahead of commercial release.
Geralyn Wichers is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator. Her article appeared in the Sept. 23, 2021 issue.
