Automated bioacoustics:methods in ecology and conservation and their potential for animal welfare monitoring

Vocalizations carry emotional, physiological and individual information. This suggests that they may serve as potentially useful indicators for inferring animal welfare. At the same time, automated methods for analysing and classifying sound have developed rapidly, particularly in the fields of ecology, conservation and sound scene classification. These methods are already used to automatically classify animal vocalizations, for example, in identifying animal species and estimating numbers of individuals. Despite this potential, they have not yet found widespread application in animal welfare monitoring. In this review, we first discuss current trends in sound analysis for ecology, conservation and sound classification. Following this, we detail the vocalizations produced by three of the most important farm livestock species: chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus), pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus) and cattle (Bos taurus). Finally, we describe how these methods can be applied to monitor animal welfare with new potential for developing automated methods for large-scale farming

The effects of heat stress on the behaviour of dairy cows – a review

Heat stress in livestock is a function of macro- A nd microclimatic factors, their duration and intensity, the environments where they occur and the biological characteristics of the animal. Due to intense metabolic processes, high-producing dairy cows are highly vulnerable to the effects of heat stress. Disturbances in their thermoregulatory capability are reflected by behavioural, physiological and production changes. Expression of thermoregulatory behaviour such as reduction of activity and feed intake, searching for cooler places or disturbances in reproductive behaviours may be very important indicators of animal welfare. Especially maintenance of standing or lying position in dairy cattle may be a valuable marker of the negative environmental impact. Highly mechanized farms with large numbers of animals have the informatic system that can detect alterations automatically, while small family farms cannot afford this type of equipment. Therefore, observing and analysing behavioural changes to achieve a greater understanding of heat stress issue may be a key factor for developing the effective strategies to minimize the effects of heat stress in cattle. The aim of this review is to present the state of knowledge, over the last years, regarding behavioural changes in dairy cows (Bos taurus) exposed to heat stress conditions and discuss some herd management strategies providing mitigation of the overheat consequences

Farm Animals’ Health Behaviours: An Essential Communicative Signal for Farmers’ Veterinary Care and Sustainable Production

Farm animals constitute valuable source of quality nutrition and economic development across the world, and sustainable farm animal production is greatly being challenged by pests and disease infestation with the resultant poor productivity, death of animals and economic losses to the farmers and nations at large. But before infections reached the threshold of debilitative effects, an infected animal communicates a physiological disturbance by vocalisation and/or visual cues. While a healthy animal communicates its good health status by active display and movement of the body parts in response to its environment, a sick animal manifests its health situation by looking dull, by being self-isolated from the stock, by being sluggish or by refusing to move on when approached or to be fed. Although the communicated cues by a farm animal are determined by the kind of physiological impairment experienced by the animal, farmers’ understanding of the specific communication cues by the farm animals would make quick detection of any laden disease in the animals possible and stimulate prompt health care service provision. Consequently, several ways by which farm animals communicate their health situation and the veterinarian actions to be taken in the light of a disease outbreak are highlighted in this article

Automatic detection of cow/calf vocalizations in free-stall barn

Precision livestock farming dictates the use of advanced technologies to understand, analyze, assess and finally optimize a farm\u2019s production collectively as well as the contribution of each single animal. This work is part of a research project wishing to steer the dairy farms\u2019 producers to more ethical rearing systems. To study cow\u2019s welfare, we focus on reciprocal vocalizations including mother-offspring contact calls. We show the set-up of a suitable audio capturing system composed of automated recording units and propose an algorithm to automatically detect cow vocalizations in an indoor farm setting. More specifically, the algorithm has a two-level structure: a) first, the Hilbert follower is applied to segment the raw audio signals, and b) second the detected blocks of acoustic activity are refined via a classification scheme based on hidden Markov models. After thorough evaluation, we demonstrate excellent detection results in terms of false positives, false negatives and confusion matrix

Tehnologije preciznog stočarstva u praćenju dobrobiti životinja: pregledni rad

Precision Livestock Farming is the use of technology to help farmers monitor and manage their animals and their farm. Precision Livestock Farming technologies can be used to improve not only animal welfare and health, but also production. Automated measures reflecting the welfare of an animal can be related to its environment, and to the behaviour and physiology of the animal, as well as its position relative to environmental features. We need to ensure that the automatic measures we record reflect the type of behavioural or physiological changes we are interested in. Other aspects to consider are space and time, in terms of variable environmental conditions and animal-related changes that occur gradually. Different types of equipment can be used for measuring behaviour automatically, and these are either attached to, interacting with, or remote from the animal. A combination of these is often the most efficient method, but it is also more complex to manage. There are also species differences as to what is feasible. Small farms are unlikely to be able to afford the type of equipment used by larger enterprises, and we need to put more effort into finding Precision Livestock Farming technologies that can work for the smallholder. The use of Precision Livestock Farming technologies for efficient animal welfare monitoring in practice requires affordable, reliable, and easy-to-use equipment, providing data that reflect – adequately and in real-time – different aspects of the state of the welfare of animals within the herd.Precizno stočarstvo uključuje primjenu tehnologija koje stočarima pomažu pri praćenju i upravljanju njihovim životinjama i farmom. Tim se tehnologijama mogu unaprijediti ne samo zdravlje i dobrobit životinja nego i proizvodnja. Automatizirani načini mjerenja koji pokazuju dobrobit životinje mogu se odnositi na njezin okoliš, ponašanje i fiziologiju, kao i na njezin položaj s obzirom na značajke okoliša. Cilj je mjerenjem osigurati dobivanje ponašajnih i fizioloških promjena koje nas zanimaju. Drugi aspekti koje treba uzeti u obzir jesu prostor i vrijeme, s obzirom na promjenjive uvjete okoliša i promjene vezane uz životinju do kojih s vremenom dolazi. Za automatizirano mjerenje ponašanja mogu se upotrijebiti različiti tipovi opreme koji se mogu postaviti na životinju, koji su na neki način povezani sa životinjom ili mogu biti udaljeni od nje. Premda je najzahtjevnija, kombinacija ovih metoda obično je i najučinkovitija. Izvodivost osim toga ovisi i o vrsnim razlikama. Male farme obično si ne mogu priuštiti opremu kao što to mogu velike te je potrebno uložiti više napora u pronalaženje tehnologijskih rješenja kojima će se moći koristiti male farme. Njihova primjena za učinkovito praćenje dobrobiti životinja zahtijeva dostupnu i sigurnu opremu kojom se lako rukuje i kojom se pravodobno dobivaju odgovarajući podaci upotrebljivi za različite aspekte dobrobiti zivotinja unutar stadu

Physiological and behavioural responses to fear and discomfort i dogs and goats

Animal welfare is an issue of great public and scientific interest. In this thesis, physiological and behavioural methods were used to evaluate fear and discomfort in two different species; dogs and goats. In the first study, fear of gun shots and different floor surfaces was investigated in collie dogs. Dogs that were fearful of floors had higher heart rates than dogs that were less fearful. Dogs fearful of gunshots had higher heart rates, haematocrit and plasma concentrations of cortisol, progesterone, vasopressin and β-endorphin, than less fearful dogs, which demonstrates that fear of gunshots is a serious stressor. In the second study, it was shown that housing and company of other animals affects arterial blood pressure, heart rate, and the concentrations of β-endorphin and oxytocin in goats. However, cortisol and vasopressin concentrations did not differ between goats that were tethered respectively loosely housed in pairs. In the dairy industry, the permanent early separation of mother and offspring is of great concern. In the third study, we found no changes in heart rate, arterial blood pressure or plasma concentrations of cortisol, β-endorphin, oxytocin and vasopressin in goats after separation. However, both goats and kids vocalised intensively. In the fourth and fifth studies, kids were either permanently separated, daily separated, or kept full-time with mothers, and were subjected to an isolation test with a dog bark at two weeks and two months of age, and an arena test with a suddenly appearing novel object at two months of age. All kids had similar growth rates. Kids kept with their mothers showed more hiding behaviours at two weeks, and early separated kids were more active with another kid. Early separated kids also deviated most in the isolation test at two weeks by reducing their vocalisation earlier and having a higher heart rate before and after dog barking, and at two months by having higher heart rate throughout the test. Daily separated kids bleated comparatively more at two weeks, decreased their heart rate after dog bark and showed the strongest fear reaction in the arena test at two months. In conclusion, it is important to measure several different physiological and behavioural parameters when assessing animal welfare

Welfare of cattle during killing for purposes other than slaughter

Cattle of different ages may have to be killed on farm for purposes other than slaughter (the latter being defined as killing for human consumption) either individually or on a large scale, e.g. for economic reasons or for disease control. The purpose of this scientific opinion is to assess the risks associated with the on‐farm killing of cattle. The processes during on‐farm killing that were assessed included handling and moving, stunning and/or killing methods (including restraint). The killing methods were grouped into mechanical and electrical methods as well as lethal injection. In total, 21 hazards compromising animal welfare were identified and characterised, most of these related to stunning and/or killing. Staff was identified as an origin for all hazards, either due to lack of appropriate skills needed to perform tasks or due to fatigue. Possible preventive and corrective measures were assessed: measures to correct hazards were identified for 19 hazards, and the staff was shown to have a crucial role in prevention. Three welfare consequences of hazards to which cattle can be exposed during on‐farm killing were identified: impeded movement, pain and fear. The welfare consequences and relevant animal‐based measures related to these were described. Outcome tables linking hazards, welfare consequences, animal‐based measures, origins of the hazards, preventive and corrective measures were developed for each process. Mitigation measures to minimise the welfare consequences are proposed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Welfare of cattle during killing for purposes other than slaughter

Cattle of different ages may have to be killed on farm for purposes other than slaughter (the latter being defined as killing for human consumption) either individually or on a large scale, e.g. for economic reasons or for disease control. The purpose of this scientific opinion is to assess the risks associated with the on‐farm killing of cattle. The processes during on‐farm killing that were assessed included handling and moving, stunning and/or killing methods (including restraint). The killing methods were grouped into mechanical and electrical methods as well as lethal injection. In total, 21 hazards compromising animal welfare were identified and characterised, most of these related to stunning and/or killing. Staff was identified as an origin for all hazards, either due to lack of appropriate skills needed to perform tasks or due to fatigue. Possible preventive and corrective measures were assessed: measures to correct hazards were identified for 19 hazards, and the staff was shown to have a crucial role in prevention. Three welfare consequences of hazards to which cattle can be exposed during on‐farm killing were identified: impeded movement, pain and fear. The welfare consequences and relevant animal‐based measures related to these were described. Outcome tables linking hazards, welfare consequences, animal‐based measures, origins of the hazards, preventive and corrective measures were developed for each process. Mitigation measures to minimise the welfare consequences are proposed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Welfare of cattle during killing for purposes other than slaughter

Non peer reviewe

Automatic Identification and Interpretation of Animal Sounds, Application to Livestock Production Optimisation

status: publishe