Precision Technology to Understand Animal Behaviour
With increasing development of automated technologies, there is scope to obtain more detailed and precise data on individual animals to understand how they behave in their housing environments, how this may impact their welfare, and how they interact with each other. The CSIRO Animal Behaviour and Welfare Team has used radio-frequency identification technology extensively to understand individual free-range laying hen behaviour across many studies. This had provided insights into the extent of individual variation and how ranging is related to health, welfare, and affective state. In collaboration with the Cybernetics group at Data61, we are developing high precision geo-spatial monitoring devices that are attached on-animals to collect large datasets that otherwise would not be possible by live observations or video recordings. With the application of machine learning algorithms, social interactions and networks in cattle and sheep can be revealed with a new level of precision.
https://peerj.com/articles/8720/
https://peerj.com/articles/8122/
https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/20/18/5340