Towards Smart Cattle Farms: Automated Inspection of Cattle Health with Real-Life Data

Abstract

Cattle diseases have a significant negative impact not only on the animals' welfare but also on the economic performance of the cattle industry [1], [2]. For example, Bovine Respiratory Disease is responsible for approximately 75% of the morbidity and 57% of the mortality in US feedlots, which is estimated to cost the agriculture industry about $1B annually [1], [2]. The current management practice to diagnose and select cattle for treatment is a widespread clinical scoring system called DART (Depression, Appetite, Respiration, and Temperature). DART requires manual labor and skilled personnel, which is a limiting factor due to labor-shortage in several industry sectors, including agriculture [3]. Therefore, a continuous and automated IoT solution to predict the health state of a cow is a critical tool for the cattle industry.