TY - GEN
T1 - Thermally sensed, automatic cow body condition scoring
AU - Halachmi, I.
AU - Polak, P.
AU - Roberts, D. J.
AU - Klopcic, M.
AU - Bewley, J.
PY - 2009/12/1
Y1 - 2009/12/1
N2 - The feasibility of including a body shape measure in methods for automatic monitoring of body reserves of cattle was evaluated. The hypothesis tested was that the body shape of a fatter cow is rounder than that of a thin cow and, therefore, may better fit a parabolic shape. The hooks and the tailhead nadirs of a thin cow diverged from the parabolic shape. An image-processing model calculates a parameter to assess body shape. The model was implemented and its outputs were validated against ultrasonic and thermal camera measurements of the thickness of fat and muscle layers, and manual body condition scoring (BCS) of 186 Holstein-Friesian cows. The thermal camera overcomes some of the drawbacks of a regular camera. The correlation between thermal camera's measurements and fat and muscle thickness was 0.47. Mean body condition scorings were 2.18, 2.15, 2.23, with no significant difference found across the assessment methods. Further research is needed in order to achieve fully automatic, accurate, body condition scoring.
AB - The feasibility of including a body shape measure in methods for automatic monitoring of body reserves of cattle was evaluated. The hypothesis tested was that the body shape of a fatter cow is rounder than that of a thin cow and, therefore, may better fit a parabolic shape. The hooks and the tailhead nadirs of a thin cow diverged from the parabolic shape. An image-processing model calculates a parameter to assess body shape. The model was implemented and its outputs were validated against ultrasonic and thermal camera measurements of the thickness of fat and muscle layers, and manual body condition scoring (BCS) of 186 Holstein-Friesian cows. The thermal camera overcomes some of the drawbacks of a regular camera. The correlation between thermal camera's measurements and fat and muscle thickness was 0.47. Mean body condition scorings were 2.18, 2.15, 2.23, with no significant difference found across the assessment methods. Further research is needed in order to achieve fully automatic, accurate, body condition scoring.
KW - Body condition scoring (BCS)
KW - Dairy cows
KW - Image processing
KW - Thermal camera
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/84890809034
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84890809034
SN - 9789086861125
T3 - Precision Livestock Farming 2009 - Papers Presented at the 4th European Conference on Precision Livestock Farming
SP - 193
EP - 200
BT - Precision Livestock Farming 2009 - Papers Presented at the 4th European Conference on Precision Livestock Farming
T2 - 4th European Conference on Precision Livestock Farming, ECPLF 2009
Y2 - 6 July 2009 through 8 July 2009
ER -