Halachmi I, Polak P, Roberts D J, Klopcic M
Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural Research Organization, Volcani Center, Bet Dagan 50250, Israel.
J Dairy Sci. 2008 Nov;91(11):4444-51. doi: 10.3168/jds.2007-0785.
The feasibility of including a body shape measure in methods for automatic monitoring of body reserves of cattle was evaluated. The hypothesis tested was that the body shape of a fatter cow is rounder than that of a thin cow and, therefore, may better fit a parabolic shape. An image-processing model was designed that calculates a parameter to assess body shape. The model was implemented, and its outputs were validated against ultrasonic and thermal camera measurements of the thickness of fat and muscle layers, and manual body condition scoring of 186 Holstein-Friesian cows. The thermal camera overcomes some of the drawbacks of a regular camera; the hooks and the tailhead nadirs of a thin cow diverged from the parabolic shape. The correlation between thermal camera's measurements and fat and muscle thickness was 0.47. Mean body condition scorings were 2.18, 2.15, and 2.23, with no significant difference found across the assessment methods. Further research is needed to achieve fully automatic, accurate body condition scoring.
评估了在牛体储备自动监测方法中纳入体型测量的可行性。所检验的假设是，较胖奶牛的体型比瘦奶牛更圆润，因此可能更符合抛物线形状。设计了一个图像处理模型，该模型计算一个评估体型的参数。该模型得以实施，并将其输出结果与脂肪和肌肉层厚度的超声波和热成像相机测量结果以及186头荷斯坦-弗里生奶牛的人工体况评分进行了验证。热成像相机克服了普通相机的一些缺点；瘦奶牛的挂钩和尾根最低点偏离了抛物线形状。热成像相机测量结果与脂肪和肌肉厚度之间的相关性为0.47。平均体况评分分别为2.18、2.15和2.23，各评估方法之间未发现显著差异。需要进一步研究以实现全自动、准确的体况评分。
