Towards improving efficiency through leg health and reproductive performance in commercial duck breeding flocks

我们的动机是通过提高生殖性能和减少腿部健康的浪费来提高生产力，从而提高效率。我们将通过整合数据采集、传感器、图像识别、基因组学和新型分析技术的创新来实现这一目标，为整个鸭子生产链开发一个集成的数据驱动解决方案。我们的三方合作项目汇集了世界领先的养鸭公司，樱桃谷农场（CVF），罗斯林研究所（RI）和哈德逊和桑德斯（H&S）。合作团队通过整个鸭生产链带来端到端的研究、创新和开发潜力。在ISCF-TFP可行性研究结束时，我们的目标是开发和评估一系列辅助工具，以管理鸭群，并获取与繁殖性能和腿部健康/步态分析相关的数据。这些工具可以被养鸭公司利用，以更准确地获取个体的相关数据，以改善遗传进展。此外，将评估与畜群产出有关的基于畜群的业绩预测指标和业绩扰动，包括福利和行为。我们项目的产出将通过育种金字塔向下传递，不仅作为改良的遗传品种，而且以管理策略的形式为客户提供技术支持。这将使像H&S这样的公司能够开发颠覆性技术并提供集成解决方案，这些解决方案有可能提高鸭子生产的生产率和可持续性。拟议的创新是将技术（传感器、图像识别、基因组谱系）结合起来，在遗传水平（需要单个鸟类数据）和商业种群水平上提高繁殖和福利。总之，在个体和群体层面上利用这些创新将使我们能够提高生产力，减少浪费，减少作物对动物饲料的竞争，减少生产的环境足迹，从而有助于实现农业净零排放的目标。

Our motivation is to improve efficiency through increases in productivity through improved reproductive performance and reduction in wastage via leg health culls. We will achieve this by bringing together innovations in data capture, sensors, image recognition, genomics and novel analytical techniques to develop an integrated data driven solution for the whole duck production chain. Our tripartite collaborative project brings together world leading duck breeding company, Cherry Valley Farms (CVF), The Roslin Institute (RI) and Hudson & Sanders (H&S). The collaborative team brings end-to-end research, innovation and exploitation potential through the entire duck production chain. At the end of the ISCF-TFP feasibility study we aim to have developed and evaluated a range of complementary tools to manage duck flocks and capture data associated with reproductive performance and leg health/gait analysis. These tools can be exploited both by duck breeding companies to more accurately capture relevant data on an individual basis to improve genetic progress. In addition, flock based predictors of performance and perturbations of performance, including welfare and behaviour, linked to flock output will be assessed. The outputs from our project will be passed down the breeding pyramid, not only as improved genetic stock, but in the form of management strategies as technical support offered to customers. This will enable companies like H&S to develop disruptive technologies and deliver integrated solutions that have the potential to improve productivity and sustainability of duck production. The proposed innovation is in combination of technologies (sensors, image recognition, genomic pedigree) being combined to improve reproduction and welfare at both the genetic level (requiring individual birds data) and commercial population level. Together, exploitation of the innovations at both individual and flock level will enable us to improve productivity, reduce wastage, reducing the competition of crops for animal feed and decreasing the environmental footprint of production and thus contribute to delivering the target of net zero emissions from agriculture.