CMA - Grazing Time Sensors for Maternal Feeding Standards
| Project start date: | 10 October 2017 |
| Project end date: | 30 June 2018 |
| Publication date: | 06 August 2018 |
| Project status: | Completed |
| Livestock species: | Sheep |
| Relevant regions: | National |
Summary
The main objective of this study was to determine if time spent grazing by sheep could be calculated from AMLv2 sensors (tri-axial accelerometer) in a controlled experimental setting. An algorithm developed from an earlier version of this sensor (AMLv1; Alveranga et al., 2016) was used to calculate time spent grazing from data collected by the AMLv2 sensor. The AMLv2 sensors were deployed on sheep used in the MLA funded project L.LSM.0008 - Lifetime Maternals Phase II: Feeding Standards for Maternal Ewes .
The reason for deploying the AMLv2 sensors within this project came about after discussions between Hutton Oddy and Andrew Thompson. Deployment of these sensors using halters has been shown not to change the normal feeding behaviour of the animal.
Results indicated that the AMLv2 sensor could estimate time spent grazing. However, because of lack of repeatability and no video behaviour analysis, the accuracy of the AMLv2 sensor estimates could not be confirmed.
More information
| Contact email: | reports@mla.com.au |
| Primary researcher: | NSW Department of Primary Industries |
