Digital Twins in Poultry Farming: Deconstructing the Evidence Gap Between Promise and Performance

Digital twins, understood as computational replicas of poultry production systems updated in real time by sensor data, are increasingly invoked as transformative tools for precision livestock farming and sustainable agriculture. They are credited with enhancing feed efficiency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, enabling disease detection earlier and improving animal welfare. Yet close examination of the published evidence reveals that these promises rest on a surprisingly narrow empirical foundation. Across the available literature, no peer reviewed study has quantified the full lifecycle carbon footprint of digital twin infrastructure in poultry production. Only one field validated investigation reports a measurable improvement in feed conversion ratio attributable to digital optimization, and that study’s design constrains its general applicability. A standardized performance assessment framework specific to poultry has not been established. Quantitative evaluations of reliability are scarce, limited to a small number of studies reporting data loss, sensor degradation and cloud system downtime, and no work has documented abandonment timelines or reasons for discontinuation. The result is a pronounced gap between technological aspiration and verified performance. Progress in this domain will depend on small-scale, deeply instrumented deployments capable of generating the longitudinal, multidimensional evidence required to substantiate the environmental and operational benefits attributed to digital twins.