Source: Rita Jane Gabbett, MEATINGPLACE, 12/29/17


Using satellite images and 3-D cameras, researchers at USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) are finding ways to help producers maximize cattle feeding behaviors and saving more piglets per litter.

Saving piglets
Within sow barns, researchers were able to monitor an individual sow’s behavior and modify stalls to help reduce piglet deaths.
ARS agricultural engineer Tami Brown-Brandl and a team of scientists from China, Iowa Select Farms and Iowa State University developed a system to automatically process and analyze 3-D images of sows. A camera mounted over birthing stalls captures images to determine a sow's behavior and posture: if she's eating, drinking, standing, sitting or lying down.

The system, which accurately classifies behavior, could potentially help prevent sows from crushing their piglets, according to Brown-Brandl, who works at ARS's Roman L. Hruska U.S. Meat Animal Research Center in Clay Center, Nebraska.

Tracking cattle eating patterns
In a pasture in Woodward, Okla., cattle wear collars equipped with solar panel wings that relay a summary of each animal’s movement to a satellite. Scientists at the Agricultural Research Service Southern Plains Range Research Station use the data to calculate how fast they are traveling and then assign various behaviors, such as whether an animal is resting, grazing or walking.

“So far, we’ve learned with GPS collar data analysis that relatively small changes in common beef herd management practices have measurable impacts on how animals use rangeland pastures,” said ARS research leader Mark Petersen. “This is significant, because the environmental footprint of rangeland beef production is related to how animal impact is spread out across the landscape.”

ARS scientists, along with New Mexico State University collaborators, furthered the research by developing vegetation maps from satellite images that show where cows are spending their time. Scientists believe the data will show that heifers prefer certain types of vegetation.

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