The health and productive output of dairy cows can be closely correlated to individual cow feed intake. Being able to monitor feed intake on a daily basis is beneficial dairy farm management.
Each cow can be addressed individually with minimal time required from those working with the animals. This is essential as time management is closely tied to resource management in a dairy operation.
Anything that can save time and resources and increase profitability and herd health is a paramount advantage in dairy farming.
This study examined the use of machine vision structured light illumination three-dimensional scanning of cow feed to determine the volume and weight of feed in a bin before and after feeding dairy cow.
Calibration and control tests were conducted to determine the effectiveness and capability of implementing such a machine vision feed scanning system. Such a system is ideal as it does not obstruct workflow or cow feeding behavior.
This is an improvement over existing systems as the system in this research study can be implemented into existing farm operations with minimal effort and costs.
Read the dissertation here: MONITORING DAIRY COW FEED INTAKE USING MACHINE VISION
