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Use of electronic identification for automated oestrus detection in livestock
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Edité par CCSD ; Wageningen Academic Publishers -
International audience. Electronic identification (e-ID) of livestock allowed the development of new equipments able to assist producers in farm management practices. Oestrus detection is a key for many breeding practices (e.g. artificial insemination) and strongly determines fertility results. With this aim, an autonomous radio frequency reading and recording equipment, automatically triggered by the male mounting activity, was developed (Pat. WO/2005/065574). The reader captures the e-ID codes of mated females which are stored jointly with the reading time. Captured data is further sent wireless to a remote computer and allows defining the oestrus characteristics of each female. In a first experiment, a group of 30 ewes were identified with 15 mm glass transponders fixed on the tail base and mated with 1 equipped ram. Few hours after ram introduction isolated readings indicated that the ram made mating attempts on non-receptive ewes (false positive). Thus, only ewes that had repeated readings were considered to be in oestrus (true positive). The number of readings per ewe were largely variable (3 to 205) as well as mean oestrus duration (mean = 20.4 h; SD=13.0 h). All detected ewes lambed. In a second experiment, 9 series of 4 ewes were oestrus synchronised (FGA sponges and eGH injection) from late summer to autumn. Sexual behaviour was more intense with the advancement of the reproductive season (i.e. the mean number of readings per ewe increased from 19.5 to 68.0). Oestrus activity started on average 18.5 h after sponge removal, duration evolved from 9.3±5.2 h in early September, to 31.6±23.3 h in mid-October. New equipment is under development for reading ewes identified with rumen boluses (grant INRA-DGER) and research is conduced to assess the best conditions for hormone-free insemination after oestrus detection. Similar devices for cows and goats are under development. The equipment may also be used for sorting pregnant and open females and parturition dates planning.
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