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Monitoring of ethological expressions of animals for the purpose of developing sensors assessing various animal movements
KINDLOVÁ, Jana
Breed of beef cattle belongs to one of the most important branches of live-stock production in the Czech Republic. These farm animals are mainly used to produce milk and meat. Since 1989 numbers of beef cattle have strongly declined, this transparent decrease now marking more than a 2 million difference from the early 1990s. The main aim of this thesis is to gather basic information, details and primarily formulate knowledge about the behaviour of dairy cows and their physiological reactions in relation to the process of milking and the consequent response regarding the water requirement and kinetic activities (e.g. the need to relax). The research described in this thesis was conducted in DZV Nova a. s. enterprise, Petrovice, which cultivates an area of nearly 5000 hectares and has 640 dairy cows of Holstein breed in its possession. Vital meter is a device in a sealed box, which hangs on a dairy cow?s neck while registering a certain amount of movements throughout a specific time, one hour in our case. Each hour is divided into two hundred and forty fifteen-second sections. Any movement during this section is therefore registered in a computer through this device?s receiving antenna. A total number of 6 gravid cows of Holstein breed, in a good health condition, with an average daily milk yield between 25 ? 35 litres, was selected for our ethological observation. All these dairy cows had a vital meter placed on their necks, which measured the aforementioned amount of movements an hour. The actual observation took place between the 27th and 28th of October and between the 4th and 6th of December 2012. First, the dairy cows were observed throughout the entire 24-hour period (November 27th, 28th) and then twice in 12-hour periods (December 4th, 6th). The overall time of observation equalled to 48 hours. Temperature conditions ranged from -3 degrees of Celsius to +5 degrees. The animals were gathered and therefore milked in a milking parlour three times a day roughly between 12 ? 13, 20 ? 21 and 3:45 ? 4:30. From the computer records we found out that the vital metres successfully registered all these movements and as a result verified the functionality of these devices and their possible usage as the means of observation of cows? kinetic activities. The outcomes of the dairy cows? observation and the data from vital metres also imply that even if the vital metres correctly registered increased kinetic activity representing a real rise in cows? mobility, they fail to display the particular acts of lying and getting up as well as jumps. After calculating an average from individual daily activities of a dairy cow, these results can be concluded: During a 24-hour period one dairy cow spends three and three quarters of an hour feeding itself, drinks seven times, excretes eleven times, urinates 5 ? 6 times. It places itself at rest nine times and the measured time spent lying accounts for an average of 11 hours and 39 minutes. The process of rumination is connected with lying or standing and lasts for 6 hours and 41 minutes a day. As for the kinetic activity, the average distance walked by one cow amounts 478, 6 metres. There is only one phenomenon contradicting the literary articles/literature ? the process of feeding, which is significantly (75 minutes) shorter and consequently leads to dairy cows producing less urine than they ought to, yet they have more kinetic activities and mobility. As mentioned, a dairy cow walks almost 480 metres a day, while literary sources state less (200 ? 300 metres).
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Monitoring moving activity of beef cattle during the year
RUDA, Jan
Beef cattle breeding is one of the basic and traditional kind of agriculture department in the Czech Republic. In the last few years is growing the number of beef cattle especialy in mountain areas and foothills. My work was focused on assesment of moving activity of beef cattle (whole year outdoor lairage) with special aim at outward and inward factors. Experiment was realized in a small privat farm (40ha) in foothills. Breeding animals are crossbreeds of these beef cattle races: charolais, piemontese, aberdeen angus, hereford, gasconne, limusine and czech pied cows. Monitoring was made by pedometers placed on the neck part and anterior limb (used 20 animals) and on the neck only (used 10 animals). Pedometr counts the numer of movements in hour, every single hour is separated into 240 parts - 15 seconds each. If is there any move during that time, pedometr will record. The additional technical equipment is antenna and PC with an appropriate software. For temperature and air humidity measuring was used datalogger noticing the data every hour. We compared the influences of tempereture and air humidity on moving activity, influence of rutting season on moving activity and finaly the differences between the data from the neck part and from the anterior limb. Was found out that the temperature has a fundamental influence on the moving activity. No ralation between the air moisture and the moving activity was found. There was not such a big increase of moving activity during the rutting season as we expected. The activity measured on the neck was significantly higher then the activity measured on the anterior limb. Both of them embodied mathematical functional dependence.
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