13TSB_AgriFood: Precision Cow Health Management

This project seeks to develop innovative moving 3D imaging technology to enhance measurement of cow body condition score (BCS), live weight and mobility (gait) as a highly advanced management decision-making tool to improve the pace at which these key quality and production traits are identified for animal welfare, sustainability and profitability. The technology will simultaneously and unobtrusively provide stress-free monitoring of incremental changes in individual cow condition and lameness to inform and improve nutrition management, cow health, welfare and productivity leading to increased herd lifespan and more efficient milk production. These traits are currently measured by manual visual assessment requiring high skill levels and training, and so are open to the subjectivity of individuals. Our novel imaging technology will enable much more precise, reliable and frequent measurement, creating greater opportunities to improve cow performance and welfare. Individual cow data will be stored within a central web database to enable benchmarking and on-line dissemination of analysed data back to the farmers and others in the value chain.

This project seeks to develop innovative moving 3D imaging technology to enhance measurement of cow body condition score (BCS), live weight and mobility (gait) as a highly advanced management decision-making tool to improve the pace at which these key quality and production traits are identified for animal welfare, sustainability and profitability. The technology will simultaneously and unobtrusively provide stress-free monitoring of incremental changes in individual cow condition and
lameness to inform and improve nutrition management, cow health, welfare and productivity leading to increased herd lifespan and more efficient milk production. These traits are currently measured by manual visual assessment requiring high skill levels and training, and so are open to the subjectivity of individuals. Our novel imaging technology will enable much more precise, reliable and frequent measurement, creating greater opportunities to improve cow performance and welfare. Individual cow data will be stored within a central web database to enable benchmarking and on-line dissemination of analysed data back to the farmers and others in the value chain.

The main beneficiaries are dairy farmers who will be provided with a tool for objectively monitoring cows. Automated Body Condition Score (BCS) and gait measurement, beyond current manual visual assessment, will inform earlier nutrition management (including for breeding) and treatment of lameness respectively. By objectifying and automatically quantifying BCS, the system will enable automatic closed-loop feeding to optimise cow fat presence/condition. This will allow the farmer to easily keep the cow weight/fat and condition at the optimal levels for milk production, as well as avoiding health issues that can be associated with incorrect feeding level/rates. Additionally, the early detection of lameness will allow corrective action to be applied before the condition develops to the extent that milk production is affected or costly vet treatment is needed or the cow needs to be culled. Farmers will benefit from detailed data analysis, benchmarking and reporting through their desired information system as a service. Individual animal data will be integrated with other systems to provide higher level statistics e.g. proxy traits of feed conversion rates. Within a year of the project end, the database of information will be utilised to assess correlations with herd health and genetics, which will help to inform breeding decisions.

A rapid pay back should be achieved by farmers who invest in the system. For a 300 cow herd, yielding 8,000 litres per cow, a typical annual saving through enhanced health management would be £48,500. With a system price of £10,000 and an annual service fee of £5 per cow the return on investment would be 960%. A 5% UK market uptake is expected within 5 years of the end of the project, equating to 725 sales of the system with a gross sales value (at £10,000 per system) of £7.25m together with on-going annual fees from herd benchmarking services amounting to £1.1m (£5/cow/year for 218,000 cows). An annual saving to the industry in excess of £15m would result from savings in net herd replacement cost, improved fertility and reduced lameness. Feedback from producers and industry contacts indicates a strong demand for this type of technology. As well as benefiting dairy farmers by assisting with optimising milk production and cow condition/health, this technology will also provide benefits impacting on other sectors of the dairy industry e.g. vets, nutritionists, milk buyers and retailers. These will arise from greater integration of health management, more productive and profitable dairy herds, improved cow health public image, and enhanced food security (benefits to start emerging within 2 years of the project end). The system also has the potential to be adapted for use by abattoirs for grading both dairy and beef animals prior to slaughter, thereby benefitting that industry.

Manufacture of the systems will provide numerous indirect benefits, such as increased business for system parts suppliers, and in the case of international sales, contributing to UK exports. Internationally, established dairy production is often from larger herds and presents further market opportunities. The top five milk producing countries in the EU have 14 million cows; seven times the UK dairy cow population. Danish and German producers are well known for their early adoption of technology such as robotic milking systems and will be attracted by the benefits of the proposed technology. Even with modest market penetration, sales into the EU of over 1,000 systems could be achieved in 5 years. Rapidly emerging international dairy markets, such as China, India and Russia provide a large potential market into fast developing large scale production units. No such system currently exists in any of the world's dairy producing countries but sales of hi-tech solutions into these markets indicate a willingness to adopt new technology. We believe such international markets should also yield revenues of £1m per annum within 5 years.