Digital Twins for Cows and Chickens: From Hype Cycles to Hard Evidence in Precision Livestock Farming

Summary

This systematic review establishes that despite widespread promotional claims, no fully realised engineering-grade digital twins are currently deployed in commercial dairy or poultry systems. Existing platforms are better classified as near-digital-twin systems, prototypes or decision-support tools, and the empirical foundation for claimed benefits remains limited. The paper identifies three critical gaps: quantification of life-cycle carbon costs of digital infrastructure, field-validated feed efficiency improvements (particularly poultry feed conversion ratios), and systematic reporting of failure rates and technology abandonment, alongside persistent adoption barriers related to rural connectivity, costs, data governance and farmer trust.

Regional applicability

The findings apply directly to United Kingdom dairy and poultry farming contexts, where precision livestock farming adoption is advancing but subject to similar connectivity, cost and data governance constraints. UK producers considering digital twin investment should be aware that current commercial deployments remain substantially less advanced than marketing rhetoric suggests, and that rigorous validation in UK farm environments remains essential before major capital commitments.

Key measures

Validation status of digital twin systems; life-cycle carbon impacts of digital infrastructures; feed efficiency improvements; technology failure rates and downtime; adoption barriers and farmer concerns regarding data rights and trust.

Outcomes reported

The paper synthesises evidence on digital twin implementations in commercial dairy and poultry systems, identifying that no fully realised engineering-grade digital twins are deployed today. It maps critical validation gaps, carbon accounting gaps, and adoption barriers across technical, economic and social dimensions.

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