Author: Margareta Emanuelson (SLU) & Henrik Österlund (Hencol AB) - Date: November 7, 2018

The feed efficiency project aims to develop and present innovative growth and feed supply for beef producers via web interfaces and smart phones. The project is based on Hencol's award-winning automatic unmanned precision weighing for cattle, which will present growth estimates along with information about current feed status and group feed in order to simplify (and via smart phone) to track and optimize ongoing production.

Figure 1. Autonomous weighing video picture tagged with animal EID and weight. The dashboard shows current growth and high resolution growth graph.

The algorithm development to follow varying growth and detecting small deviations in weight is done in the project’s first phase. Initial data processing reveals interesting results ofr beef production optimization and a high potential for animal welfare related monitoring of mammals.

The project's results are expected to be of great importance to beef producers, but also to give positive effects to other players in the industry and to reduce the environmental impact from beef production. The system will be open to connect multiple manufacturers of feeding systems and is scheduled to be introduced as a new, innovative additional web service in Hencol's existing beef production support system, LiveStock Planner.

The system will be developed for beef cattle, but can also be used for e.g. heifers that are kept in groups in a dairy herd to signal for unintended fattening.

Project coordinator: Henrik Österlund, Hencol AB, henrik@hencol.se
Project partners: Farmer Mats Johansson, Bleckenstad Gård AB, Helene Oscarsson, Vreta Kluster