Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers · code 6122

Poultry producers

Sensors can watch the flock. Catching a sick bird is still a farmer's job.

AI barely touches nine of the twelve tasks, including keeping sheds and equipment going and processing produce. Planning production and arranging sales are mostly out of its reach too.

What they actually do (and what else they get called)

Poultry producers plan, organize and perform farming operations to breed and raise chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks and other poultry to produce meat, eggs and breeding stock for sale or delivery to wholesale buyers, marketing organizations or at markets. Tasks include - (a) monitoring market activity, planning and coordinating production accordingly, and maintaining and evaluating records of farming activities; (b) growing and purchasing feed and other supplies needed to maintain appropriate nutritional levels and condition of poultry; (c) monitoring and examining poultry to detect illness, injury or disease and to check physical condition such as rate of weight gain, and removing weak, ill and dead poultry from flock; (d) mixing feed and feed additives and filling feed and water containers; (e) vaccinating poultry via drinking water, injection or dusting of air; (f) collecting and storing eggs and packaging them for sale or delivery to market; (g) determining sex of chicks and facilitating breeding, artificial insemination and hatching of eggs; (h) renting or investing in, and maintaining and cleaning, farm buildings, machinery, equipment and structures; (i) slaughtering and dressing poultry for sale or delivery to market; (j) storing and carrying out some processing of produce; (k) arranging the sale, purchase and transportation of stock, produce and supplies; (l) training and supervising workers in poultry production procedures, maintenance duties and health and safety precautions, and hiring and discharging workers and contractors. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Poultry breeder - Poultry farmer - Poultry tender Note Workers who produce a combination of domestic livestock and other animals such as poultry, insects and non-domesticated animals should be classified according to their predominant activity.

poultry breeder
poultry sexer

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

81 / 100

Strongly holds up against AI

Most of this job still needs an actual human. AI would mostly be making the tea.

Not the odds you keep your job. It's how much of the everyday work still needs a person, out of 100.

← Robot's turf Human's turf →

The ILO's official verdict: Not Exposed

130 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 12 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 18.9 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 18.9 = 81.1.

That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Not Exposed”: None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count.

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Pinch of salt: this number is probably too rosy

It only asks what AI software could do, and this job is 61 out of 100 hands-on. A chatbot can't do that part. A robot might, one day, and nobody measures how close that is.

Man v Bot · compare

Who holds up better?

Poultry producers 81

Go on, try your partner's job. Or your sibling's. We won't tell.

Man v Bot

Where the bot helps, and where the human wins

Bot

What AI takes

The routine stuff. You may not miss it.

Production planning and records.
Sales and supply arrangements.
Automated feeding and climate control.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

Checking birds for illness and injury.
Vaccinating and handling birds.
Keeping biosecurity tight.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

Sensors and cameras that track flock health.
Higher welfare standards.
Disease outbreak response.

Written by a human, from the ILO's task ratings below. Yes, we see the irony. Read it as one person's take.

Meet your two rivals

They're not the same machine. AI software can only reach the parts of a job done on a screen or in words. A chatbot can't climb a ladder. A robot might, one day, if it doesn't fall off.

The AI

Lives in a screen. Never had to fix a boiler.

Threat level: Low

34 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 65 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Higher

61 how hands-on

Most of this job needs hands, a body or turning up. That's robot territory, and nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to give you a number. We won't make one up.

So could a robot do the physical part?

Less fine handwork and fewer cramped spaces than a typical hands-on job. That clears one hurdle for machines. It doesn't mean machines are doing this work yet.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 38 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

61 How
hands-on

38 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Hands-on, less fiddly work

The small print

They aren't a robot score, and nothing on this page is. Nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to put a number on it. These are the closest thing we have: how hands-on the job is, and how much fiddly, cramped work it takes, which is what Frey and Osborne found hardest for machines.

From O*NET, averaged across 2 US jobs .

finger skill 41 · hand skill 39.3 · cramped spaces 32.2 · averaged · rule: hands-on 50+ · fiddly under 39.4

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.8-observed-use measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

The job, task by task

Every job is really a bundle of tasks. Here's this one unpacked, with how much of each AI could do, out of 100. The score is the average, and averages can hide a lot.

AI's favourite task here scores 41, against an average of 19. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

41
Monitoring market activity, planning and coordinating production accordingly, maintaining and evaluating records of farming activities

Low
36
Arranging the sale, purchase and transportation stock, produce and supplies

Low
25
Training and supervising workers in poultry production procedures, maintenance duties and health and safety precautions, and hiring and discharging workers and contractors.

Low
17
Determining sex of chicks and facilitating breeding, artificial insemination and hatching of eggs

Very Low
15
Growing and purchasing feed and other supplies needed to maintain appropriate nutritional levels and condition of poultry

Very Low
14
Monitoring and examining poultry to detect illness, injury, or disease and to check physical condition, such as rate of weight gain, and removing weak, ill and dead poultry from flock

Very Low
14
Slaughtering and dressing poultry for sale or delivery to market

Very Low
14
Vaccinating poultry via drinking water, injection or dusting of air

Very Low
14
Collecting and storing eggs and packaging them for sale or delivery to market

Very Low
13
Mixing feed and feed additives and filling feed and water containers

Very Low
12
Renting or investing in, and maintaining and cleaning, farm buildings, machinery, equipment and structures

Very Low
12
Storing and carrying out some processing of produce

Very Low

12 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Sidekick or replacement?

A tool that makes you faster is a very different thing from one that does the task while you watch. Jobs and Skills Australia measured the two separately, which is handy.

AI helps you: 65
AI does it for you: 34

Sidekick wins, by 31 points.

How good a match is this?

1 Australian jobs match this one, and we've simply averaged them. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 1213, 3632

So, should poultry farmers be worried?

Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.

Parts of the business side are changing. Planning production, arranging sales and supervising staff are the most exposed tasks, all Low; caring for birds, vaccinating and collecting eggs rate Very Low. Automated feeding, climate control and sensors are common, but flocks still need people.

Worth remembering: we score tasks, not jobs. When AI takes on a task, the job usually reshuffles around it rather than vanishing.

Where this job could lead

None of the new jobs we've written up start from here yet. Could be you're the first. See the jobs AI is creating →

How are the neighbours doing?

There are 18 jobs in the “Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers” family, averaging 84. This one is below the family average.

Pit this against any other job →