Computers and Electronics in Agriculture
Automatic detection of lameness in dairy cattle-Vision-based trackway analysis in cow's locomotion
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture
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Monitoring the activity of broilers is a potential way for determining gait score level at commercial farms. In this study, a fully automatic monitoring technique was developed to measure the activity of broiler chickens with different gait score levels. We carried out two experiments in order to assess the relationship between gait scores obtained by human experts and activity levels quantified by an automatic image monitoring system. The chickens were scored for their degree of lameness by experts according to the method of Kestin et al. (1992). For each experiment, a total of 30 birds, on day 32 were selected from a local commercial farm. Five birds were selected in each of six gait score groups (GS0-GS5). The activity levels were obtained for all gait scores by using an automatic image monitoring system. For this purpose, video surveillance images of broilers with six different predefined gait scores were analysed. In both experiments, there was a significant relation between gait score by experts and activity monitored by image analysis. The broilers with gait score 3 (GS3) showed significantly higher activities than the other gait scores in both experiments (P