Image Technology and Matrix-Geometric Method for Automatic Dairy Cow Body Condition Scoring

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<p>Dairy cow body condition scoring is a key task in nearly every aspect of modern precision dairy farming. It is important in managing the health and welfare of dairy cattle, optimizing milk yields and split meals (feeding systems), determining the timing of heat and reproduction peaks, as well as successful calving. Accurate body condition scoring ensures profitability. However, the majority of dairy farmers do not perform body condition scoring on a regular basis due to the lack of automation, and when they do, the process is time-consuming and very subjective. This paper proposes an automatic and efficient dairy cow body scoring system using image technology and the matrix-geometric method. Fusing image technology and the matrix-geometric method into a hybrid system provides a new and efficient technique for dairy cow body condition scoring. In order to do so, firstly, anatomical cow body points are extracted from the rear views and top views of cow images. Then the geometric properties of the extracted anatomical points are transformed into a Markov chain matrix to determine the body condition scores. For a confirmation of the validity of the proposed method, some experimental results are shown by using a public cow body condition database.</p>

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