Farm Animals’ Behaviors and Welfare Analysis with AI Algorithms: A Review

peer reviewedNumerous bibliographic reviews related to the use of AI for the behavioral detection of farm animals exist, but they only focus on a particular type of animal. We believe that some techniques were used for some animals that could also be used for other types of animals. The application and comparison of these techniques between animal species are rarely done. In this paper, we propose a review of machine learning approaches used for the detection of farm animals’ behaviors such as lameness, grazing, rumination, and so on. The originality of this paper is matched classification in the midst of sensors and algorithms used for each animal category. First, we highlight the most implemented approaches for different categories of animals (cows, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, and chickens) to inspire researchers interested to conduct investigation and employ the methods we have evaluated and the results we have obtained in this study. Second, we describe the current trends in terms of technological development and new paradigms that will impact the AI research. Finally, we critically analyze what is done and we draw new pathways of research to advance our understanding of animal’s behaviors

A review of environmental enrichment for laying hens during rearing in relation to their behavioral and physiological development

Globally, laying hen production systems are a focus of concern for animal welfare. Recently, the impacts of rearing environments have attracted attention, particularly with the trend toward more complex production systems including aviaries, furnished cages, barn, and free-range. Enriching the rearing environments with physical, sensory, and stimulatory additions can optimize the bird's development but commercial-scale research is limited. In this review, “enrichment” is defined as anything additional added to the bird's environment including structurally complex rearing systems. The impacts of enrichments on visual development, neurobehavioral development, auditory stimulation, skeletal development, immune function, behavioral development of fear and pecking, and specifically pullets destined for free-range systems are summarized and areas for future research identified. Visual enrichment and auditory stimulation may enhance neural development but specific mechanisms of impact and suitable commercial enrichments still need elucidating. Enrichments that target left/right brain hemispheres/behavioral traits may prepare birds for specific types of adult housing environments (caged, indoor, outdoor). Similarly, structural enrichments are needed to optimize skeletal development depending on the adult layer system, but specific physiological processes resulting from different types of exercise are poorly understood. Stimulating appropriate pecking behavior from hatch is critical but producers will need to adapt to different flock preferences to provide enrichments that are utilized by each rearing group. Enrichments have potential to enhance immune function through the application of mild stressors that promote adaptability, and this same principle applies to free-range pullets destined for variable outdoor environments. Complex rearing systems may have multiple benefits, including reducing fear, that improve the transition to the layer facility. Overall, there is a need to commercially validate positive impacts of cost-effective enrichments on bird behavior and physiology

Exploring the potential of Precision Livestock Farming technologies to help address farm animal welfare

The rise in the demand for animal products due to demographic and dietary changes has exacerbated difficulties in addressing societal concerns related to the environment, human health and animal welfare. As a response to this challenge, Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) technologies are being developed to monitor animal health and welfare parameters in a continuous and automated way, offering the opportunity to improve productivity and detect health issues at an early stage. However, ethical concerns have been raised regarding their potential to facilitate the management of production systems that are potentially harmful to animal welfare, or to impact the human-animal relationship and farmers’ duty of care. Using the Five Domains Model (FDM) as a framework, the aim is to explore the potential of PLF to help address animal welfare and to discuss potential welfare benefits and risks of using such technology. A variety of technologies are identified and classified according to their type (sensors, bolus, image or sound based, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)), their development stage, the species they apply to, and their potential impact on welfare. While PLF technologies have promising potential to reduce the occurrence of diseases and injuries in livestock farming systems, their current ability to help promote positive welfare states remains limited, as technologies with such potential generally remain at earlier development stages. This is likely due to the lack of evidence related to the validity of positive welfare indicators as well as challenges in technology adoption and development. Finally, the extent to which welfare can be improved will also strongly depend on whether management practices will be adapted to minimize negative consequences and maximize benefits to welfare

Animal Welfare Assessment

This Special Issue provides a collection of recent research and reviews that investigate many areas of welfare assessment, such as novel approaches and technologies used to evaluate the welfare of farmed, captive, or wild animals. Research in this Special Issue includes welfare assessment related to pilot whales, finishing pigs, commercial turkey flocks, and dairy goats; the use of sensors or wearable technologies, such as heart rate monitors to assess sleep in dairy cows, ear tag sensors, and machine learning to assess commercial pig behaviour; non-invasive measures, such as video monitoring of behaviour, computer vision to analyse video footage of red foxes, remote camera traps of free-roaming wild horses, infrared thermography of effort and sport recovery in sport horses; telomere length and regulatory genes as novel biomarkers of stress in broiler chickens; the effect of environment on growth physiology and behaviour of laboratory rare minnows and housing system on anxiety, stress, fear, and immune function of laying hens; and discussions of natural behaviour in farm animal welfare and maintaining health, welfare, and productivity of commercial pig herds

Precision Poultry Farming

This book presents the latest advances in applications of continuous, objective, and automated sensing technologies and computer tools for sustainable and efficient poultry production, and it offers solutions to the poultry industry to address challenges in terms of poultry management, the environment, nutrition, automation and robotics, health, welfare assessment, behavior monitoring, waste management, etc. The reader will find original research papers that address, on a global scale, the sustainability and efficiency of the poultry industry and explore the above-mentioned areas through applications of PPF solutions in poultry meat and egg productio

The impact of ultraviolet wavelengths on broiler chicken performance, health and welfare

Qualities of the light environment affect the performance, health and welfare of broiler chickens. UVA light is visible to chickens and may facilitate improvements in welfare. UVB wavelengths promote endogenous vitamin D synthesis, which could support the rapid development of broilers. The aim of the study was to investigate the impacts of Ultraviolet wavelengths (UV) on performance health and welfare indicators. Day-old Ross 308 birds (n = 638) were randomly assigned to one of three lighting treatments: A) White Light Emitting Diode (LED) & supplementary UVA LED lighting (18-hour photoperiod); B) White LED with supplementary UVA & UVB fluorescent lighting providing 30 micro watts/cm2 UVB at bird level (for 8 hours of the total photoperiod to avoid over-exposure of UVB); C) White LED control group, representative of farm conditions (18-hour photoperiod). Birds were fed a commercial diet and kept at a final stocking density of 33kg/m2. Indictors measured were: (Performance) average daily gains, mortality, final weights, breast weights and leg weights. (health) bone mineral density, leg composition, bone measurements, tibia strength and severity of tibial dyschondroplasia. (welfare) feather condition, tonic immobility duration and walking ability, using the Bristol Gait Score. Growth was faster in male broiler chickens in treatment B, though slower in males in treatment A. Similar final weights were achieved in all treatments. Treatment A and B improved gait score, additionally heavier broilers in both treatments had improved walking ability compared to control broilers of similar weights. Treatment A also reduced fearfulness. There was no impact of either treatment on skeletal or ocular health measures. Together these results suggest UV wavelength supplementation may offer a promising husbandry refinement for commercial indoor lighting regimes; offering potential benefits to both bird welfare without compromising performance

Animal-human interaction comparing live human observation and digital image evaluation methodologies

The expectation from retailers and the public for food animal producers to continually evaluate and improve on-farm animal welfare practices will continue. The U.S. swine industry has the Pork Quality Plus education and assessment program and starting in 2011 began on-farm third party verification. However, the lack of an animal-human based measure in the current program has drawn criticism from some activist groups. Therefore, investigating the feasibility of collecting on-farm animal-human based measures that are repeatable, objective and meaningful is critical. The objective of the first study in this thesis was to build a nursery pen image capturing device that could produce a digital image concurrently with live human pig observation to allow comparisons between the live observation and digital image evaluation methodologies for pigs classified into touch , look , and not behavioral categories. The overall conclusion for pigs housed in small nursery pens was that a device could be built and used on farm. In addition, there were no differences between these two methodologies. The objective of the second study in this thesis was to compare live human observation with digital image evaluation methodologies for pigs classified into touch , look , and not behavioral categories in commercial nursery pens. The digital image evaluation resulted in the inclusion of more look and less not classified pigs compared to live human observation. The majority of pigs classified as not were standing and only 2.5% of pigs were classified as piling. The behavioral differences between the two methodologies may have included (1) live observer field of vision limitations (2) data collection time points for the methods differed and (3) pig and observer anatomy obstructions at the time of the count. The objective of the third study from this thesis was to compare live human observation and digital image evaluation for the same pig behavioral categories as well as to determine behavioral injection effects in commercial nursery pens. There was no difference between the live and digital methodologies for pigs classified as touch , look , not , and approach. There was no difference pre-injection for postures and behaviors. Post-injection, less Circumvent-PCVM treated pigs were classified as touch and look with more not compared to CircoFLEX/MycoFLEX and saline control treated pigs. When not pigs were broken down into behaviors and postures, fewer Circumvent-PCVM pigs were standing but more were sitting and lying compared to CircoFLEX/MycoFLEX and saline control pigs post-injection. In conclusion, the live human observation methodology of classifying nursery pig behavior was the quicker on-farm method compared to digital image evaluation. The digital image allowed for more animal-human interaction measures to be collected i.e. behaviors, postures, location, and proximity from the human in the pen. Determining what activities the pigs are engaged in if not considered approaching would provide information to a producer, veterinarian, and/or assessor with respect to their overall comfort level. It would be erroneous to conclude that all pigs classified as not are fearful of humans in their home pen and therefore in a compromised welfare state. As a caveat, classifying pigs in the not category is time consuming and therefore the digital image evaluation methodology would likely not be accepted within an industry on-farm assessment program. Therefore, if negative behavior(s) (i.e. piling or escape) were counted instead of behaviors and postures considered to not negatively affect welfare, then only a few pigs in a pen would likely need to be counted and the remainder would be counted as acceptable or not fearful. Therefore, when deciding upon which methodology (live human observation and digital image evaluation) to use for an animal-human interaction test, the decision will be based on it being practical, repeatable, meaningful, and fast

Scientific Opinion Concerning the Welfare of Animals during Transport

The Scientific Opinion on the welfare of animals during transport reviewed the most recent scientific information concerning the main farm species. New scientific evidence and consequent conclusions and recommendations were arranged following the structure of Annex I of EC Regulation 1/2005 . On fitness for transport, recommendations for cattle and poultry were focused on repeated humane handling and careful inspection prior to transport. On the means of transport, use of partitions in horse transport, compulsory fasting of pigs with provision of water at stops, and temperature limits for poultry were major recommendations. Maintaining stability of animal groups was recommended as good practice, with special emphasis on the need to avoid mixing unfamiliar pigs or goats. On watering and feeding intervals, journey times and resting periods, journey duration should not exceed 12 hours for horses and 29 hours for cattle. Horses should be supplied with water one hour before and one hour after transport, and for cattle there should be a 24 hour recovery period with access to food and water. For rabbits, time spent inside the containers during lairage should be considered journey time. Space allowance for horses should be given in terms of kg/m2 instead of m2/animal. For cattle and sheep, it is recommended that space allowances should be calculated according to an allometric equation relating size to body weight. Limits for stocking densities of broilers in containers should be related to thermal conditions. On the navigation systems, temperature monitoring systems should be incorporated. Minimum standards should be established regarding data type to be recorded, the system and the on‐board architecture. Recommendations for further research focused on the thermal limits and regulation for poultry and rabbits, the effects of ventilation on pigs, space allowance for rabbits, newly hatched chicks and pigs, optimal journey times for horses, pigs and calves

Welfare of broilers on farm

This Scientific Opinion considers the welfare of domestic fowl (Gallus gallus) related to the production of meat (broilers) and includes the keeping of day-old chicks, broiler breeders, and broiler chickens. Currently used husbandry systems in the EU are described. Overall, 19 highly relevant welfare consequences (WCs) were identified based on severity, duration and frequency of occurrence: 'bone lesions', 'cold stress', 'gastro-enteric disorders', 'group stress', 'handling stress', 'heat stress', 'isolation stress', 'inability to perform comfort behaviour', 'inability to perform exploratory or foraging behaviour', 'inability to avoid unwanted sexual behaviour', 'locomotory disorders', 'prolonged hunger', 'prolonged thirst', 'predation stress', 'restriction of movement', 'resting problems', 'sensory under- and overstimulation', 'soft tissue and integument damage' and 'umbilical disorders'. These WCs and their animal-based measures (ABMs) that can identify them are described in detail. A variety of hazards related to the different husbandry systems were identified as well as ABMs for assessing the different WCs. Measures to prevent or correct the hazards and/or mitigate each of the WCs are listed. Recommendations are provided on quantitative or qualitative criteria to answer specific questions on the welfare of broilers and related to genetic selection, temperature, feed and water restriction, use of cages, light, air quality and mutilations in breeders such as beak trimming, de-toeing and comb dubbing. In addition, minimal requirements (e.g. stocking density, group size, nests, provision of litter, perches and platforms, drinkers and feeders, of covered veranda and outdoor range) for an enclosure for keeping broiler chickens (fast-growing, slower-growing and broiler breeders) are recommended. Finally, 'total mortality', 'wounds', 'carcass condemnation' and 'footpad dermatitis' are proposed as indicators for monitoring at slaughter the welfare of broilers on-farm