The automatic detection of dairy cow feeding and standing behaviours in free-stall barns by a computer vision-based system

Porto, Simona M.C.; Arcidiacono, Claudia; Anguzza, Umberto; Cascone, Giovanni

doi:10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2015.02.012

Cited by 72 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Further tests will be performed with the AFS in comparable ambient conditions. An automated system, similar to that developed by Porto et al (2013Porto et al ( , 2015, for the efficient detection of position and activity of Technical Note the animals should be adopted which will allow for initiation of a further research phase for collecting data with an installed and functioning AFS. Additionally, it is important to underline that cows have more behavioural freedom when automated feeding systems are integrated with automated milking systems, an aspect that should be subject to further investigation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of automatic feeding systems on design and management of dairy farms

Borso

Chiumenti

Sigura

et al. 2017

J Agricult Engineer

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During the last decades, many dairy farmers have actively advanced their farms toward automation. Automatic concentrate dispensers and automatic milking systems have been utilised for years, and several manufacturers have introduced automatic feeding systems (AFS). AFSs allow for the increase in frequency of feed distribution with significant advantages in terms of health and production. Furthermore, they provide a reduction of man labour related to preparation of feed, distribution, and propelling the ration closer to the feeding rack.The present research was focused on the monitoring of a dairy farm, located in the Veneto region of Italy, during the transition from a conventional feeding system (CFS), based on a tractor operated mixing wagon, to an automatic system equipped with stationary feeding hoppers, mixing unit, and distribution wagon operating on rail. The article reports a comparative analysis of the structural modifications required for the adoption of AFS, including an analysis of the AFS/CFS systems based on their functionality, energy, and man labour requirements. In the case study, AFS represented an affordable way to reduce covered area of the housings, as a result of the reduction in width of foraging lane and the reduction of manger front length. In addition, AFS demonstrated a reduction in labour requirements and improvement of quality and consistency of work when feeding total mixed ration. Finally, the research was addressed to study dairy cow behaviour. A method for monitoring the feeding, resting, and standing indexes was applied to the CFS farm. As a preliminary result of this activity, a positive correlation between cow resting activity and milk production was discovered.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of automatic feeding systems on design and management of dairy farms

Borso

Chiumenti

Sigura

et al. 2017

J Agricult Engineer

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“…Dairy cow behaviour was studied by the computer-vision based system for the automatic detection of dairy cow behaviour in free-stall barns developed in previous studies (Porto et al, 2013(Porto et al, , 2015. The computer-vision based system was composed of a multi-camera video-recording system and a software component, which executes cow behaviour detectors modelled by using the Viola-Jones's algorithm.…”

Section: Behaviour Analysis and Heat Stress Indicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This time sampling interval is largely adopted in literature to study the dairy cow behaviours analysed in this study. The execution of the computer-vision based system allowed the detection of dairy cow behaviours with a high level of accuracy as proved by the good values of the sensitivity indices (i.e., approximately 92% for the lying behaviour and 86% for feeding and standing ones) which yielded the percentage of cow behaviours correctly classified over the total number of cow bred in the area of the barn under study (Porto et al, 2013(Porto et al, , 2015. Three different behaviours were analysed among those most frequently studied (Overton et al, 2002;DeVries et al, 2003aDeVries et al, , 2003bFregonesi et al, 2007;Provolo and Riva, 2009;Bava et al, 2012) because they are highly related to the comfort of dairy cows: i) feeding, which refers to the standing still position of the cows in the feeding alley with the head through the rack; ii) standing, which refers to the standing still position of the cows in the alley or inside the cubicle or to the deambulation; iii) lying, which refers to all the possible decubitus position of the cows inside the cubicle.…”

Section: Behaviour Analysis and Heat Stress Indicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The following behavioural indices (Overton et al, 2002;Provolo and Riva, 2009;Mattachini et al, 2011;Bava et al, 2012) were automatically computed by the computer-vision based system (Porto et al, 2013(Porto et al, , 2015: The behavioural indices were then related to the thermal stress index, named temperature humidity index (THI), which is the most frequently used in literature to assess the level of the thermal stress of dairy cows (Oliveira and Esmay, 1982;Cook et al, 2007). In this work, the THI index was calculated by the following relation (Yousef, 1985):…”

Section: Behaviour Analysis and Heat Stress Indicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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On the influence of the alternation of two different cooling systems on dairy cow daily activities

Porto

D'Emilio

Cascone

2017

J Agricult Engineer

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Among the causes that influence cow welfare, heat stress induced by microclimatic conditions is one of the most relevant and many studies have investigated the efficacy of different cooling systems on animal health status. Nevertheless, the direct influence of the cooling systems on possible modifications of dairy cow behaviour has been addressed in a few studies and the related results were affected by the presence of a paddock, which gave a refuge from hot temperature. Since an alteration of the daily time budget spent by dairy cows in their usual activities can be associated with changes in their health status, this study investigated the effects of the alternation of two different cooling systems on lying, standing, and feeding behaviour of a group of dairy cows bred in a free-stall dairy house where animals had no access to a paddock. The barn was equipped with a fogging system associated with forced ventilation installed in the resting area and a sprinkler system associated with forced ventilation installed in the feeding area. The two systems were activated alternately. The results demonstrated that the management of the two cooling systems affected the analysed behaviours. Though the activation of the cooling system installed in the resting area encouraged the decubitus of animals in the stalls, the activation of that one of the feeding alley could not be able to influence the standing behaviour and had only a moderate positive influence on the feeding activity.

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“…These systems have been used to measure the feeding time of cows based on their proximity to feeding area (Shane et al, 2016;Tullo et al, 2016;Oberschätzl et al, 2015) as compared to behavioral observations. Other automatic on-farm options for monitoring feeding time include RFID based systems, accelerometers (Arcidiacono et al, 2017;Thorup et al, 2016) and computer vision (Porto et al, 2015). The aim of this study was to develop a model to accurately measure the time at the feed bunk, visit duration and number of visits using an indoor positioning system data.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Hidden Markov Model to Estimate the Time Dairy Cows Spend in Feeder Based on Indoor Positioning Data

Pastell

Frondelius

2018

Preprint

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The feeding time of dairy cows is linked with the health status of the animal and can be used to estimate daily feed intake together with other measurements. The aim of this study was to develop a model to to measure the time a dairy cow spends at a feed bunk using an Ultra wide-band indoor positioning system. We measured the feeding behavior of 50 dairy cows during 7 days using Ubisense indoor positioning system and Insentec roughage feeders. We calculated the feeding (presence at the feeder) probability of the cow using logistic regression model with the distance to feed barrier as input and used the Viterbi algorithm to calculate the most likely state (feeding or not feeding) given state transition probabilities. The model was able to predict whether the cow was at the feeding trough or not with the accuracy of 97.6%, sensitivity 95.3% and specificity 97.9%. The model was also able to estimate the mean bout duration and the number of feeding bouts.

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The automatic detection of dairy cow feeding and standing behaviours in free-stall barns by a computer vision-based system

Cited by 72 publications

References 14 publications

Influence of automatic feeding systems on design and management of dairy farms

Influence of automatic feeding systems on design and management of dairy farms

On the influence of the alternation of two different cooling systems on dairy cow daily activities

A Hidden Markov Model to Estimate the Time Dairy Cows Spend in Feeder Based on Indoor Positioning Data

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