Deviation in mobility patterns of dairy cows as indicators of lameness

Summary

Lameness is the most common disease in dairy farming throughout the world including the Netherlands. The disease is an important welfare problem and cause significant economic losses in terms of reduced reproductive output, milk production, and treatment costs, and increased culling rates. The development of an early warning system for identifying cows that are at risk of developing lameness could decrease the prevalence of these diseases in dairy farms. However, cows that are early lame are usually not identified as early as possible. This is because cows at these stages cannot be easily identified by the eye by both the farmer and veterinarian. Therefore, in this thesis I determined whether early lame cows could be identified using GPS and accelerometer sensors.