Abstract
Extensive sheep farmers often don’t have the time or resources to regularly monitor the health and wellbeing of their animals. Recent technological advancements in automated data capture have made this task easier, though to date this technology has not included behavioural monitoring. We tested whether quantitative and qualitative behavioural assessment (QBA) methods could be used to assess sheep in different welfare states as they traversed a walk-over-weigh (WoW) system. Video footage was remotely collected from thirty-six Merino sheep within four treatment groups; control (n=12), habituated (n=8), lame (n=8) and inappetant (n=8) as they traversed the WoW system. The habituated sheep were exposed to a low-stress handling regime for six consecutive days prior to filming.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 51st Congress of the International Society for Applied Ethology |
| Subtitle of host publication | Understanding Animal behaviour |
| Editors | Margit Bak, Mette S. Herskin, Jens Malmkvist |
| Publisher | Brill |
| Pages | 209 |
| Number of pages | 1 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9789086868582 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9789086863112 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2017 |
| Externally published | Yes |
| Event | 51st Congress of the International Society for Applied Ethology - Aarhus, Denmark Duration: 7 Aug 2017 → 10 Aug 2017 Conference number: 51 |
Conference
| Conference | 51st Congress of the International Society for Applied Ethology |
|---|---|
| Abbreviated title | ISAE2017 |
| Country/Territory | Denmark |
| City | Aarhus |
| Period | 7/08/17 → 10/08/17 |
Keywords
- sheep
- behavioural monitoring
- sheep farmers
- walk-over-weigh (WoW) system
- automated data capture
- QBA
- sheep welfare