Welcome to the interest group

'Activity & Behaviour'

This is a place where you can discuss all technologies and data related to activity and behaviour. Please use the menu on the left to navigate to the discussion forum, or upload/download documents.

Introduction

In the last few decades, the dairy industry has increased significantly in cow productivity and also in the size of dairy herds. So on modern automated farms, it’s difficult to look after all the cows and also the direct contact with them is decreasing. Currently we also have more knowledge on how indicators can tell us about the well-being of the animals. This creates a greater need and opportunity to monitor the animals and reduce costs and labour inputs in large farms while increasing farm productivity.

Movement and behaviour of farm animals can relay information about their level of activity and well-being. Using sensor technology to collect key physiological parameters, like cow activity rate, it becomes easy to monitor that behaviour is on a normal level to detect and prevent cow disease, accurately determine the cow oestrus, achieve fine breeding for improving milk yield and to promote the quality of raw milk. So behavioural monitoring systems in herds are useful as tools to collect data about cow individual behaviour, which can later be used to evaluate cow health, welfare and determine the reproductive status.

The most reliable way to monitor activity and behaviour is to attach sensors at individual cow. Typical sensors of this kind are accelerometers, pedometers and global positioning (GPS) trackers.

Why use sensors?

• labour saving through simultaneous animal localization;
• flexible workflow management;
• an optimized reproduction cycle through reliable heat detection;
• establish a normal behavioural pattern where management and housing can be assessed on the farm level;
• an early warning system for risks;
• monitor losses due to reproduction or diseases that can affect the production;
• flexible data access and
• increased economic efficiency of the farm.

Take a look in the document page and the forum to get more information!

Last update: January 30, 2017.