P.PSH.0819 - Objective, robust, real-time animal welfare measures for the Australian red meat industry
When animal welfare is compromised, low resilience behaviours are reduced and the underlying structure of behaviour (bout lengths, frequency of transitions between activities) is affected.
| Project start date: | 20 June 2017 |
| Project end date: | 30 June 2023 |
| Publication date: | 17 June 2024 |
| Project status: | Completed |
| Livestock species: | Grain-fed Cattle, Grass-fed Cattle, Sheep, Goat, Lamb |
| Relevant regions: | National |
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Summary
When animal welfare is compromised, low resilience behaviours are reduced and the underlying structure of behaviour (bout lengths, frequency of transitions between activities) is affected. These behaviours and their structure are unknown for beef cattle. This project will determine these behaviours which will then form objective measures of cattle welfare from birth to slaughter. Robot platform based LIDAR, and ear-tag based technology will be simultaneously used to remotely monitor and collate these behaviours to detect practices and situations that compromise welfare and allow rectification.
Objectives
This project addressed four research questions:
1. Can the behaviour of beef cattle be accurately monitored in real-time using on-animal sensor systems?
2. How do behaviours change across different adverse welfare contexts?
3. Can we use this new way of monitoring cattle behaviour to inform new best practice to improve animal welfare?
4. Do the transitions in behaviour state, derived from sensor systems, decrease across all types of reduced welfare?
Key findings
Key outputs from this research include:
1. A data driven heat stress alert with improved accuracy when compared with the current system
2. Best practice weaning method for industry
3. Revealing the impact of invasive animal husbandry procedures on animal behaviour and practical methods of pain relief (pelletised form)
4. Animal welfare monitoring metric across all contexts based on behavioural diversity
5. The support and completion of two PhDs (Ashraful Islam and Sarah Mac) and the support and development of two early career scientists (Dom Van Der Saag and Sabrina Lomax) for the Australian Red Meat Industry.
Benefits to industry
These experiments have provided data on the behaviour profiles of varying states of cattle welfare. These data will inform improved strategies to address the stress of weaning calf from cow and the detection (and forecasting) of heat stress.
The experiments have also highlighted the diversity that exists in the resilience of cattle to varying adverse welfare contexts showing the potential for the creation of new phenotypes for genetic selection.
An objective measure of welfare has been provided to inform strategies for improved welfare.
MLA action
Communications and extension of best practice weaning methods across industry.
Evaluate pelletised pain relief administration via the PDS model for on-farm husbandry procedures.
Future research
1. Expand automated (sensor-based) data collection across Australia’s feedlot industry to further improve the accuracy of the data driven heat stress alert system. To replace the existing methods for heat stress alerts.
2. Extend the best practice weaning methods across industry.
3. Integrate pelletised pain relief administration onto producer demonstration sites for further evaluation.
The impact of castration and dehorning on animal behaviour over long durations revealed, for extension to industry regarding the value of pain relief.
4. Validate the proposed welfare monitoring metric across varying scenarios for use as an objective measure of welfare for the Australian red meat industry.
More information
| Project manager: | Michael Laurence |
| Contact email: | reports@mla.com.au |
| Primary researcher: | University of Sydney |
