| title: | Investigation of Cows' Automatic Welfare Assessment Possibilities |
|---|---|
| reg no: | ETF6053 |
| project type: | Estonian Science Foundation research grant |
| status: | accepted |
| institution: | Institute of Animal Husbandry at EAU |
| head of project: | Imbi Veermäe |
| duration: | 01.01.2005 - 31.12.2008 |
| description: | Main tasks of the investigation are: 1. Elaboration of basic methods for automatic and remote registration and analysis of data at loose housing that may be used to characterise the welfare. 2. Creation of a methodological basis for the automatic welfare-monitoring tool. 3. Development and approbation of automatic data-acquisition system. 4. Development, simulation and analysis of cattle-shed heat-exchange model with some incorporated welfare indicators. 5. Establishment of the most important factors affecting the microclimate at uninsulated loose housing cowsheds. 6. Evaluation of dairy cows' welfare in loose housing cowsheds, using appropriate welfare index. 7. Investigation of dairy cows' behaviour (adaptation to loose-housing system, behavioural patterns according to season, group size and working regime, problems of social stress, etc) in large cattle-sheds. 8. Comparative study of the automatically acquired data and welfare evaluation results. |
| project group | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| no | name | institution | position | |
| 1. | Eugen Kokin | Estonian Agricultural University | Docent | |
| 2. | Aime Pajumägi | Estonian Agricultural University | lecturer | |
| 3. | Imbi Veermäe | Institute of Animal Husbandry at EAU | sen. researcher | |