0 avis
Monitoring water trough attendance in shed: a potential indicator of sheep health or welfare issues?
Archive ouverte
Edité par CCSD ; Wageningen Academic Publishers -
Session 39 - Théâtre 1. International audience. As part of the TechCare project (2020-2024), various new technologies are tested in seven pilot farms (5 countries) to assess their use as potential early warning of animal welfare issues or of risk factors for small ruminant sectors. Among different welfare indicators, we are interested in water intake as one of the pillars of good health and well-being in sheep. Our objective is to study the watering behaviour of sheep in sheds to potentially detect early welfare or health problems. Our device is composed of three main components. 1) Each animal wears an Ultra High Frequency (UHF) Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag, and a reading antenna is installed above each water trough. The data is collected using a reader connected to the internet. 2) Each water trough is equipped with a connected water meter with automatic data transmission on a web platform. 3) The device is completed by a motion detection camera to validate our data and observations. In France, this device has been set up in (i) a meat sheep shed to monitor fattening lambs (91) for 4 weeks in 2022, and in (ii) a dairy sheep shed to monitor a batch of lactating ewes (40) for 6 weeks in 2022 and 12 weeks in 2023. A welfare assessment protocol has been designed alongside to collect individual observations and measurements on a series of welfare indicators. These attendance data are studied at the individual scale, at the flock scale, and in relation to other data characteristic of the animals’ environment (temperature and humidity of the shed, for example), and results on how they tally with the welfare measurements will be presented in this paper. Monitoring water trough attendance could be a relevant indicator to design an early warning system for sheep health or welfare.
Consulter en ligne
Suggestions
Du même auteur
