Amodo Design ยท Beak Scanner

Beak Scanner

A bench-top rig for researchers at the Roslin Institute that photographs a hen's beak in a repeatable, measurable way. The aim is to study how beak shape influences injurious pecking: capture the same view of every bird, extract the shape, and relate it to what the flock does.

The rig

An enclosed booth on the bench. The bird's head is presented at a fixed position, lit by a ring light, and imaged by a camera on a mount that keeps the framing identical from hen to hen. A laptop drives the capture and files each image against the bird's ID.

The beak scanner rig on a workbench: a rounded plywood booth with a ring light and camera mount inside, next to a laptop

The prototype rig on the bench during commissioning.

What it captures

Right-side profiles of nine hens, straight from the rig. Every frame shares the same lighting, distance and angle, so beak length, curvature and tip shape can be compared bird to bird rather than eyeballed.

A three by three grid of monochrome close-up profile photographs of hens' beaks, all taken from the right side under the same lighting

Hens 29 to 39, right-side profile. One capture per bird.

Why it matters

Repeatable

Fixed geometry and lighting mean a photo taken next month is directly comparable with one taken today, on any bird.

Measurable

Consistent profiles turn beak shape from a description into numbers: length, curvature, tip angle, wear.

Linked to behaviour

Shape data can be set against pecking and injury records to ask whether beak form predicts harm in the flock.

Beak Scanner — a beak imaging rig for the Roslin Institute by Amodo Design
Consistent beak profiles for injurious-pecking research.
enclosed booth · ring light · fixed camera mount
per-bird ID capture · right-side profile