Feed Bin Monitoring Gives Growers Control Over their Biggest Cost

There’s one thing we all know for certain. You can’t be everywhere at once. Otherwise, you’ll be running in circles all day long. With technology getting better every day, growers no longer need to rely on manual methods or even dated technologies to run the farm. Let’s focus on feed bin monitoring. It’s one of the largest investments you’ll make on the farm. Wouldn’t you like to maximize those costs so nothing goes to waste? So we’re all on the same page, let’s first discuss what feed bin monitoring is.

Defining Feed Bin Monitoring

Remember the days, or yesterday, when growers and their workers would climb a ladder or peek through a small window in the feed bin to make an educated guess as to how much feed was left? Today, Agralarm came up with a solution that uses LiDAR technology to give you accurate data 24/7, and all you need to do is check your phone, tablet or desktop for real-time levels. The LiDAR technology sends the reading to a cloud Dashboard. From there you can see every bin in one place, whether you manage a single house or sites spread across a county.

The feed monitoring system goes well beyond a simple level reading. It estimates the feed weight, calculates daily usage, forecasts how many days of feed remain, and send an alert when a bin drops too low. As growers ourselves, we chose LiDAR because it gave us the accuracy we needed without the cost of load cells.

Why Feed Bin Monitoring Matters So Much

Here is the number that puts everything in perspective. According to the University of Maryland Extension, 60% to 70% of the cost of raising poultry is feed. When one budget line item makes up that much of your budget, even small improvements add up quickly.

Growers measure value in four areas. Let’s call them the four pillars of feed monitoring. Each one connects to that feed bill.

Safety and Animal Welfare Go Hand in Hand

An empty bin on a Saturday night is every grower's nightmare. Poultry or that go without feed get stressed. When that happens, performance drops. A low bin alert set to your threshold level, gives you time to react. Instead of discovering the problem when the feed line runs dry, you get an alert with plenty of time to spare.

Profitability Comes from Better Insights

Emergency feed orders are expensive. Rush deliveries, partial loads, and extra trips all cost your farm extra money. These costs end up being the responsibility of the grower or the integrator with minimal tracking. When you can see days of feed remaining for every bin, deliveries can be streamlined.

Efficiency Frees Up Your Day

Walking and checking feed bin levels takes time, and climbing up and down the ladder carries safety risk. Every trip up a ladder is a chance for a fall, especially in wind, rain, or ice. Did you know that falls are in the top 5 every year according to OSHA?

Remote feed bin monitoring means you can check your bins from any location whether you are in town or in another state. Your saved time can now go to There you need it: caring for the animals.

How LiDAR Measures the Feed in Your Bin

There are several ways to measure feed inventory, and LiDAR has become one of the most practical options for poultry and swine farms. LiDAR stands for light detection and ranging and it works by bouncing light off of a surface to measure distance.

Agralink sensors from Agralarm use LiDAR to detect feed levels accurately regardless of bin type, shape, size and layout. The feed measurement process occurs every 5 minutes with the following 3 steps:

The sensors run on solar power and carry an IP67 weatherproof rating. That means no wiring to run out to each bin and no worries about dust, rain, or washdowns getting inside the sensor.

LiDAR Compared with Load Cells and Manual Checks

Load cells have long been considered the gold standard because they weigh the bin directly. The catch is cost and complexity. Installing them usually means lifting the bin, modifying its legs, and running power to every site. LiDAR takes a different approach. It estimates weight from volume instead of weighing directly, which brings the price down while still giving growers the data they can make decisions with.

What a Live Dashboard Tells You

Sensors are only half the story. The value of a feed monitoring system is when all of the data is shown in one clear view. Agralarm's Feed IQ dedicated Dashboard page turns bin sensors into a live picture of fill level, tons on hand, daily usage, and days of feed left.

Here is a sample snapshot from a poultry farm with six bins across three houses. Notice how quickly you can spot the house that needs attention. In this example, House 4 is the priority. One bin is low and the other is nearly empty, and both have less than a day of feed left. Without monitoring, that problem might not surface until the feeders stop running.

Each bin also reports additional details such as capacity, number of rings, battery voltage and sensor temperature. A history chart shows how fast feed is moving, which helps you uncover unusual usage early.

How Feed Bin Monitoring Changes the Way You Order Feed

Most growers told us how feed ordering changed. Instead of it being a reactive task, it is now proactive. Meaning, you can better plan when feed needs to be delivered.

Automated feed reports make this even easier. Usage data can be exported and shared, which helps with inventory reconciliation, logistics planning, and conversations with your integrator about flock performance.

What the Research Says About Sensor Based Feeding

The move toward sensors on the farm is part of a much larger trend. A 2026 review published in the journal Animals looked at sensor based precision feeding systems across animal production and noted that feeding represents a significant share of breeding costs.

The same review pointed out that precision feeding relies on electronic and information technologies that make it possible to measure critical parts of the feeding process.

Important Feed Bin Monitoring Features

Not every feed bin monitoring system is built the same. If you are comparing options, the table below covers the features that tend to matter most once a system is running on a farm.

Integration With MTech Systems

For integrators already using MTech Systems, Agralink feed bin monitoring data can sync directly into the MTech dashboard. That gives the integrator visibility across the whole poultry operation without logging into a separate tool.

Frequently Asked Questions

How accurate is LiDAR feed bin monitoring?

LiDAR provides highly accurate level readings. Load cells measure weight directly, but LiDAR delivers numbers accurate enough for delivery planning at a much lower cost.

How often do the sensors update?

Agralink sensors update every 5 minutes. This allows you to catch a feed line problem before any damage is done to the animals. Do I need to modify my bins?

No structural changes are needed. The sensor mounts at the top of the bin and runs on solar power, so there is no need to lift the bin or run electrical wiring.

Will it work on different bin types?

Yes. The system is designed to measure feed accurately regardless of bin type and layout.