Egg production forecasting: Determining efficient modeling approaches

Several mathematical or statistical and artificial intelligence models were developed to compare egg production forecasts in commercial layers. Initial data for these models were collected from a comparative layer trial on commercial strains conducted at the Poultry Research Farms, Auburn University. Simulated data were produced to represent new scenarios by using means and SD of egg production of the 22 commercial strains. From the simulated data, random examples were generated for neural network training and testing for the weekly egg production prediction from wk 22 to 36. Three neural network architectures-back-propagation-3, Ward-5, and the general regression neural network-were compared for their efficiency to forecast egg production, along with other traditional models. The general regression neural network gave the best-fitting line, which almost overlapped with the commercial egg production data, with an R(2) of 0.71. The general regression neural network-predicted curve was compared with original egg production data, the average curves of white-shelled and brown-shelled strains, linear regression predictions, and the Gompertz nonlinear model. The general regression neural network was superior in all these comparisons and may be the model of choice if the initial overprediction is managed efficiently. In general, neural network models are efficient, are easy to use, require fewer data, and are practical under farm management conditions to forecast egg production.