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Animal welfare

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Footbathing to treat lameness in dairy farming

Lameness is recognised as the primary animal welfare issue in dairy farming. Nationally, 25% of dairy cows are lame at any one time. Although it has multiple causes, the key factor in most herds is endemic diseases, such as digital dermatitis, sole ulcers, and white line disease. Early detection and prompt intervention is critical to effective control and treatment of lameness, which costs farmers in excess of £300 per case. Many hoof lesions, especially relating to digital dermatitis, are visible prior to lameness developing but can be difficult to see in practice and require specialist training to diagnose.

The Hoofcount footbath was developed and introduced to the UK market in 2012. Designed with simplicity in mind, it now has a sustained reputation in the UK as the Market leader in Effective and Reliable Footbathing.

The UWE academic team collaborating on the Hoofcount project is led by Dr Wenhao Zhang of the Centre for Machine Vision. Wenhao’s team are working on developing and integrating machine vision technology and AI software for hoof disease detection. Their aim is to realise algorithms, able to capture, filter, and analyse hoof images several times daily in a non-invasive way, to detect hoof issues in the earliest stages and to monitor for changes. Experiments and tests are being conducted in several UK dairy farms.

 

Read more below:

Hoofcount case study

Virtual fencing for livestock: Nofence

Nofence began in a small Norwegian town named Batnfjordsøra, many years ago when their Founder and CTO, Oscar Hovde, set about making his idea of virtual fencing for livestock a reality. As the concept grew, so did the interest. The man with a plan soon became people with a purpose: getting animals out on pasture where they belong. And with the help of their customers whose input, innovation, and patience continue to be an integral part of their product development, Oscar’s idea blossomed. Today, NoFence are a team of international professionals with a set of shared goals: to support livestock farmers, improve animal welfare, and restore the fertility of our soil.

Nofence has created the world’s first virtual fencing for livestock: using GPS and cellular communication technology built into special collars to help farmers graze animals on pasture without the need for traditional penning and electric fences. Their vision is to improve animal welfare and make it easier for farmers to rear animals, as well as promote sustainable food production and help people to make better use of pasture resources throughout the world.

NoFence is one of the many agri-tech innovators in residence at Agri-EPI Centre’s Midlands Agri-Tech Innovation Hub, where the availability of all kinds of agricultural expertise and access to commercial farms for trials and research offers practical benefits to their agri-tech solutions. Since joining the Midlands hub in April 2021, Nofence has expanded with 7 new employees and has increased its customer base from 25 to over 400 at present. From distributing their first 400 collars in 2021, they are now at over 6500+ and have been featured on BBC Countryfile, BBC One show and GB News.

Read the Nofence case study below for more information:

Nofence 

 

Pioneer dairy centre re-launched to test state-of-the-art technology

Cutting edge facilities supporting sustainable milk production

Dairy production innovators have a novel, state-of-the-art facility in which to test technology following the relaunch of Agri-EPI Centre’s South West Dairy Development Centre (SWDDC).

Already established as a high-performing dairy innovation unit, the SWDDC has reopened following an extensive upgrade to install the latest robotic and sensor technology. Additions include a high-welfare, free access system for cows, integrating Lely A5 robotic milking systems with precision-grazing, while incorporating the existing GEA robotic feeding system. Galebreaker side curtains ensure the climate within the building is continually optimised.

The resource offers a truly innovative environment for developing, testing and demonstrating new technologies and techniques to support sustainable, efficient, high health and welfare, cost-efficient milk production. Located close to Shepton Mallet in the heart of the region’s milk field, the unit features a typically sized 180-cow herd run on a commercial basis and provides a platform for higher technology readiness level developers.

The building and facilities are run by precision engineering specialists, Agri-EPI Centre, while the herd is owned and managed by the Christensen family, trading as Steanbow Farms. and noted throughout the farming community for their efficient dairy and poultry enterprises. The project is supported by Innovate UK. All milk goes to local processors, Barber’s cheese.

“We are thrilled to reopen the Centre for business following the installation of an R&D platform focussing on integrating free grazing and automation ready for innovation,” explains Agri-EPI Centre Head of Agri-Tech (Dairy), Robert Morrison.

The Centre key areas of focus are to

· Provide state-of-the art facilities for research, development and demonstration with an emphasis on optimising productivity

· Integrate robotic milking with precision grazing

· Demonstrate profitable and resource efficient milk production techniques

· Demonstrate the highest standards of animal health and welfare and how technology can be used to optimise this

· Demonstrate routes to sustainable milk production by adopting circular dairy principles in all aspects of the production process

Steanbow Farms’ Neil Christensen comments:

“We’re keen to work with Agri-EPI as service providers on our farm. We want the Centre to do well which is why we created that relationship in the first place – for the future of the industry. A robotic demonstration farm is becoming more and more relevant as the industry tackles ever increasing labour challenges. This Centre is demonstrating systems and an approach; it’s a place for technology testing but also knowledge exchange and industry engagement.”

Robert Morrison adds:

“We look forward to developing new partnerships and projects – both funded and private research, which will continue our current themes featuring animal health and welfare, environmental sustainability, farm business sustainability, and feed and productivity.”

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Agri-EPI network explores data needs for farmers online

Agri-EPI Centre hosted a member community online special interest group titled What has data ever done for you, that brought farmers and tech developers from across the agri-tech sector together online to discuss data needs, successes and challengers for farmers.

The event was chaired by Eliot Dixon, Head of Agri-Tech (Engineering) at Agri-EPI Centre, and discussions were led by David Smurthwaite, Head of Dairy at Mackie’s of Scotland, and Jose Chitty, COO of Smartbell.

Jose Chitty began the conversation with an overview of his Smartbell project, an animal health monitoring and management system that provides unique data insights, focused on detecting health issues in calves. Smartbell makes it easy to gather data and present insights directly on a phone, and allows for farmers to spot problems faster and more easily, and create benchmarks for tracking changes and improvements on farm. This kind of data gathering can help to improve profitability, improve animal health, justify spending, and help to access funding.

David Smurthwaite, one of Agri-EPI’s innovation farmers, then took over the discussion to comment on the farmer perspective for using data and tech on farm. He uses Smartbell on his farm, and though he was cynical and had a hard time believing in the data at first, the app has improved and the system is working well for his team. For David, data needs to be user friendly, as implementing changes and getting an older team on board to use tech can be a challenge. He would like for the information to be more accessible but has very much started to rely on tech to aid him and his team in improving the welfare of their animals.

Discussion followed, where a number of questions were posed to the audience, and an array of thought-provoking answers were shared:

 

Q: What is the ultimate destination for this technology in the future?

A: Data transfer across the industry for benefit and joined up decision making, data that drives actions to help business, and a hand holder for farmers improving sustainability and profitability.

 

Q: What data sources are already vital for farmers?

A: Data associated with productivity, data that mitigates known risks, data that enables yield to be optimised, and data that provides efficiency on farm.

 

Q: What are specific challenges on farm that could be solved with data and information now?

A: Yield forecasting, connecting environment with individual animal performance, prediction rather than just alerting, investment, storing data, and statistical analysis for data.

 

Q: What is stopping farmers from getting the most information out of the data they have?

A: The data isn’t always the farmers but rather the equipment manufacturers, the data is too complex, farmers may lack certain skills or digital knowledge needed to understand the data adequately, farmers may not have enough time or have inoperable systems on their farm, and a lack on interoperability.

 

Q: What are disadvantages of using information and data?

A: Becoming over-reliant on certain companies and pieces of tech, the lack of accuracy of some data, or getting landed with the wrong application. Trust in the system needs to be ensured.

 

Q:Who should own the rights to the data from farms?

A: Farmers should own the data and be able to have a say on what is done with it, but secondary information could be owned by third party. Both parties should understand contractual laws and come to their own agreements, since data sharing is extremely important for the agriculture sector.

 

Agri-EPI will host their next member community special interest group in person at Cranfield University on 17th January, entitled Accelerating robotic systems for agriculture. Find out more here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/special-interest-group-accelerating-robotic-systems-for-agriculture-tickets-464983296557

Small family business becomes market leader in hoof health

An innovative project leading the way in hoof health has won nearly £250,000 in innovation funding.

Hoofcount is a 10-year-old family business, focusing on how to keep cows’ hoofs clean and healthy. Their project is aimed at using vision to develop an early detection lameness monitoring system. It has won funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), part of Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme, for feasibility studies combining innovation with research and collaboration with farmers and growers.

Hoof health is a prevalent issue in agriculture, particularly in the dairy industry, as it is one of the main factors leading to poor milk production. Dairy cows are susceptible to a range of hoof issues including Digital dermatitis, sole ulcers, white line disease and overgrown hooves. These often show a visual change in the underside and back of the hoof. These issues can develop initially without the animal showing visual signs in its gait.

John Hardiman, Software Engineer at Hoofcount explained:

“Lameness is a key issue in dairy herds, with conservative estimates of 25% of dairy cattle suffering from lameness and each lame cow costing more than £300 in loss of production and treatment. The Hoofcount footbath is trusted and recommended by farmers, vets and hoof trimmers internationally as they are seeing a continuous fall in lameness on farms using the Hoofcount Automatic Footbath.”

Detecting and treating these issues at an early stage is beneficial to the animal in keeping the hooves healthy and preventing severe lameness which leads to a lower production, increased veterinary and treatment costs, reduced animal welfare, a higher Carbon footprint, and many other issues. Developing a system that can visualise these changes daily and detect any potential issues early will be of huge benefit to the national herd. Utilising computer vision and machine learning is Hoofcount’s preferred method for monitoring and detecting these issues.

“Collaboration with farmers is core to Hoofcount’s continued innovation and leading reputation in reliable foot-bathing for herd hoof health. Agri-EPI Centre has bolstered our collaboration, with the introduction of The Centre for Machine Vision (CMV) at University of the West of England Bristol and successful application for Innovate UK funding (IUK). CMV has a track record of successful computer vision within agriculture. Agri-EPI has been instrumental in the project funding application and continues to support the project organisation with its network of research farms.”

“As with our automatic footbaths, we know that we will never get rid of Digital dermatitis and hoof health issues completely, however we want to do everything we can to minimise the effects of them and reduce the spread.”

Duncan Forbes, Head of Dairy at Agri-EPI Centre said:

“This is a great example of the sort of practical collaborations we seek to create, bringing together innovative companies like Hoofcount with leading research experts like the team at CMV at UWE Bristol. Early detection of lameness is vital to meeting the challenge of delivering a substantial reduction in lameness prevalence in dairy herds. UK milk producers will very much welcome the benefits to cow welfare and cost reduction that this emerging technical solution will deliver.”

New film highlights technology for sustainable dairy production

Dairy Production technology

Agri-EPI’s South West Dairy Development Centre (SWDDC) in Somerset and one of its satellite farm, Parkend Farm in Fife, are featured in a new film highlighting the development of technology in sustainable dairy production.

The video was produced as part of the Horizon 2020 ‘Internet of Food & Farm’ project. It explores the work of the project’s Dairy Trial Team at Strathclyde University, led by Professors Ivan Andonovic and Craig Michie.

The team is looking at sensors and Artificial Intelligence-based solutions for helping farmers increase their herds’ milk yields, based around a new platform called Herdsman+.

Lots of data about a cow’s health, fertility and performance can be collected using tools such as internet-connect collars, leg tags and milking robots. The key to generating the most accurate picture of each cow in the herd is to be able to integrate this data. Herdsman+ does exactly that, analysing the information to allow the farmer to make well-informed management decisions for optimising each animal’s health, welfare and milk yield.

Sustainable dairy

Agri-EPI has supported the Dairy Trial Team by providing data from the SWDDC and Park End dairy farm. The two dairies have also hosted events for farmers to consult them about new and future tools which may support their businesses’ sustainability during these challenging times for the dairy sector.

 


Logo Science Animated

Science Animated

This video has created by Science Animated is a scientific communication agency who develop engaging and accessible animations based on specific researcher’s work. For more information: https://sciani.com

 

Tag Archive for: Animal welfare

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