Abstract #207
Section: Production, Management and the Environment (orals)
Session: Production, Management, and Environment II
Format: Oral
Day/Time: Monday 5:30 PM–5:45 PM
Location: Ballroom C
Session: Production, Management, and Environment II
Format: Oral
Day/Time: Monday 5:30 PM–5:45 PM
Location: Ballroom C
# 207
Monitoring daily liveweight in grazing sheep using an automated walk-over-weighing system.
Eliel González-García*1, 1SELMET (Systèmes d’Élevage Méditerranéens et Tropicaux), INRA, Montpellier SupAgro, CIRAD, Univ Montpellier, Montpellier, France.
Key Words: autoweighing, automatic monitoring, grazing ruminant
Monitoring daily liveweight in grazing sheep using an automated walk-over-weighing system.
Eliel González-García*1, 1SELMET (Systèmes d’Élevage Méditerranéens et Tropicaux), INRA, Montpellier SupAgro, CIRAD, Univ Montpellier, Montpellier, France.
Monitoring liveweight (LW) is typical for management purposes (e.g., weight gain, body condition, slaughtering schedules). Even if time and labor consuming, measuring LW indoor is relatively easy. However, recording LW outdoor may become difficult. The aim of this project was to trial an automated small ruminant weighing prototype conceived by our team. Using the remote weighing concept of walk-over-weighing (WoW), combined with radio-frequency identification, it was designed to be light, resistant, transportable and autonomous in energy (Figure 2; González-García et al.; https://doi.org/10.1017/S1751731117002609). The LW is collected as the animal traverse freely over the WoW platform, strategically placed in an obligatory path combined to a small yard with water and mineral salts as incentives. In a series of experiments carried out in a range of sheep farming situations (i.e., indoor and outdoor) we studied the system' efficacy. Time required for achieving individual voluntary passages, the number of daily individual visits and the proportion of biologically plausible LW records were analyzed. The Lin’s concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) was used to establish the repeatability of the WoW and the agreement with LW recorded in static scales. Our results showed the feasibility of achieving freely, voluntary passage of sheep and the efficiency of water and mineral salts as incentive, for encouraging the pass over the WoW. After 2–3 weeks of adaptation, 100% of animals crossed daily. Sheep misbehavior (e.g., speed of passage) can result in spurious values and accounted for many of the larger weight discrepancies (outliers; 35% of initial raw records from the database downloaded from the WoW system). Once outliers removed, the prediction accuracy of the system and the CCC ranged between 0.93 and 0.99 thus showing a substantial agreement between records from the new system (WoW) and the gold standard measurement (static bascule). Using this standalone WoW system, it was possible to record daily individual LW with controlled sheep flow over the platform, allowing to prevent congestion. Our WoW prototype contributes to save labor and time, to animal welfare and to a close individual monitoring whatever the farming condition.
Key Words: autoweighing, automatic monitoring, grazing ruminant