Angus Beef Structural Trait Estimation from 3D Camera Data

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Canadian beef producers are currently challenged with remaining viable while addressing growing negative consumer perceptions of cattle production and its impacts on the environment, animal health and welfare and food safety. These demands can also include the use of antibiotics, animal pain management and the efficient use of environmental resources. To address these increasing economic, environmental and social pressures, producers need innovative tools to select the most efficient, healthy, and robust animals as possible to use in the breeding sector. Choosing the right animals at this primary sector has significant downstream impacts on all Canadian cattle production sectors of the value chain. The Canadian Angus Association (CAA), created to preserve and expand the Angus breed for Canadian cattle producers it represents and beef consumers, requires new genetic selection tools for functional traits such as teat and udder structure, feet and leg structure, and health are necessary for profitable and sustainable beef production moving forward. Current industry practice for the assessment of these traits is a highly-manual process performed by a trained assessor. It is widely recognized as highly subjective, error prone, time consuming and lacks both quantitative measures and a permanent record. The CAA seeks a solution to overcome these identified shortcomings that will rapidly provide accurate, quantitative trait measurements. To this end, a new camera-based system and accompanying methodology for on-site 3D measurement of beef cattle structural traits will be developed. It will automatically compute structural traits of Angus beef cows in order to provide on-site quantitative assessment to identify healthy and robust animals.