Smart sheep: precision livestock farming and sustainable sheep production

智能羊：精准畜牧业和可持续羊生产

• 批准号: 51340
• 金额: $ 25万
• 依托单位: MOREDUN RESEARCH INSTITUTE
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Collaborative R&D
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=51340
• 关键词: Smart; sheep; precision; livestock; farming

This project addresses the adoption of precision livestock farming (PLF) technologies in sheep farming. PLF has been widely adopted in the management of high-value animals e.g. dairy cattle, but is not currently applied to those with lower economic value, e.g. sheep, despite the potential to increase production efficiency. In the UK, there are around 23.3 million sheep, including 14.7 million breeding ewes worth approximately £690 million to the economy. Since 2010, all individual sheep in the UK are equipped with EID (Electronic Identification) tags, further paving the way for use of PLF technologies. However, uptake is a major issue. A recent survey of European sheep farmers showed that only 38% of farmers have any EID equipment, which are rarely used for sheep management. Likewise, in the UK, a survey of PLF technology adoption showed that 55% of farmers did not have and did not intend to adopt EID technology for management purposes.The project consortium will engage with end-users (members of the farming community and farming advisors) early in the project, to co-design tools to increase the uptake of PLF on-farm. We will use one proven PLF tool; an existing pen-side tool to optimise lamb worming, using an algorithm for the early identification of under-performing lambs. This Targeted Selective Treatment (TST) has been developed at MRI and validated at MRI, SRUC and on commercial farms, including one facilitated by 5Agri. The adoption of TST reduces wormer use and labour, and the costs required. Importantly, it slows the development of wormer resistance. Farmers have described a clear need for this type of approach on farm. However availability to the farming community is currently hampered by the lack of a user-friendly method for farmers to access the algorithm. This project will facilitate the integration of the algorithm into a cloud-based platform, thereby making it easily accessible to farmers.Validation of the improved technology will be performed on 10 'innovative' and 2 research sheep farms across the UK, covering a range of geographical locations and using commercially appropriate sheep breeds to ensure evidence that is relevant to a wide range of sheep farms. Cost-benefit analysis and carbon foot-printing of implementing the new approach will be conducted.The results of this project will be disseminated through on-farm knowledge exchange events at strategic locations across the UK to demonstrate the ease, accessibility, cost-benefit and environmental benefit of using this integrated pen-side TST approach.

该项目涉及在养羊业中采用精确畜牧技术。PLF已被广泛应用于高价值动物（如奶牛）的管理，但目前尚未应用于经济价值较低的动物（如绵羊），尽管它有可能提高生产效率。在英国，大约有2330万只绵羊，其中包括1470万只种羊，经济价值约为6.9亿英镑。自2010年以来，英国的所有绵羊都配备了EID（电子识别）标签，进一步为使用PLF技术铺平了道路。然而，吸收是一个主要问题。最近对欧洲养羊户的一项调查显示，只有38%的农民拥有EID设备，这些设备很少用于养羊管理。同样，在英国，一项关于PLF技术采用情况的调查显示，55%的农民没有也不打算采用EID技术进行管理。项目联盟将在项目早期与最终用户（农业社区成员和农业顾问）合作，共同设计工具，以提高农场对PLF的采用率。我们将使用一个经过验证的PLF工具;一个现有的围栏工具，以优化羔羊蠕虫，使用算法的早期识别表现不佳的羔羊。这种靶向选择性治疗（TST）已在MRI开发，并在MRI，SRUC和商业农场进行了验证，包括由5Agri提供的一个农场。TST的采用减少了wormer的使用和劳动力，以及所需的成本。重要的是，它减缓了蠕虫抗性的发展。农民们描述了在农场上明显需要这种方法的情况。然而，农业社区的可用性目前受到农民缺乏用户友好的方法来访问算法的阻碍。该项目将有助于将算法集成到基于云的平台中，从而使农民更容易获得。改进后的技术将在英国各地的10个“创新”和2个研究型羊场进行验证，覆盖一系列地理位置，并使用商业上合适的绵羊品种，以确保与广泛的羊场相关的证据。该项目的结果将通过在英国各地的战略地点举行的农场知识交流活动进行传播，以展示使用这种综合围栏边TST方法的简易性、可及性、成本效益和环境效益。