Schnidrig Guy-Alain, Struchen Rahel, Schärrer Sara, Heim Dagmar, Hadorn Daniela, Schüpbach-Regula Gertraud, Paternoster Giulia
Veterinary Public Health Institute, Vetsuisse, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
Graduate School of Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
Front Vet Sci. 2025 Feb 5;12:1517173. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1517173. eCollection 2025.
While many countries have registries of livestock farms, it can be challenging to obtain information on their primary production type. For example, for Swiss farms registered as keeping cattle, a distinction can only be made between milk-producing and non-milk-producing farms. The Swiss cattle industry consists of beef and dairy farms, with a strong predominance of small to medium-sized farms. A better differentiation of cattle production types would be beneficial for the planning and evaluation of surveillance programmes for cattle diseases and for the benchmarking antibiotic consumption. The aim of this study was to outline cattle production types of interest and to allow the classification of Swiss cattle farms according to production type in order to optimize surveillance. We collaborated with experts to define the five primary cattle production types: calf fattening, dairy cattle, cattle fattening, rearing cattle and suckler cows. In collaboration with the cantonal Veterinary Offices, we collected production types from 618 reference farms across 14 cantons and defined a total of 24 features by combining information from three national databases. Using farm-level data on milk production, age and sex distribution, cattle breeds, calving, births, slaughter, animal movements and antibiotic use, we trained three different machine learning models capable of classifying the five production types. Among these models, the Random Forest model demonstrated the highest level of performance, achieving an accuracy of 0.914 (95% CI: 0.890, 0.938) and an F1-Score of 0.879 (95% CI: 0.841, 0.913). In conclusion, together with experts, we have outlined five primary production types on cattle farms in Switzerland and developed a model that allows a reproducible, year-to-year classification of cattle farms using national datasets. Our flexible methodology could be adapted to other countries and datasets, enabling veterinary authorities to conduct more efficient and targeted disease surveillance in the future.
虽然许多国家都有畜牧场登记册，但要获取有关其主要生产类型的信息可能具有挑战性。例如，对于注册为饲养牛的瑞士农场，只能区分产奶牛场和非产奶牛场。瑞士的养牛业由肉牛场和奶牛场组成，中小型农场占主导地位。更好地区分养牛生产类型将有利于牛病监测计划的规划和评估以及抗生素消费基准的制定。本研究的目的是概述感兴趣的养牛生产类型，并允许根据生产类型对瑞士养牛场进行分类，以优化监测。我们与专家合作定义了五种主要的养牛生产类型：犊牛育肥、奶牛、肉牛育肥、育肥牛和哺乳母牛。我们与各州兽医办公室合作，从14个州的618个参考农场收集了生产类型，并通过合并来自三个国家数据库的信息定义了总共24个特征。利用农场层面关于牛奶产量、年龄和性别分布、牛品种、产犊、出生、屠宰、动物流动和抗生素使用的数据，我们训练了三种能够对五种生产类型进行分类的不同机器学习模型。在这些模型中，随机森林模型表现出最高的性能水平，准确率达到0.914（95%置信区间：0.890, 0.938），F1分数为0.879（95%置信区间：0.841, 0.913）。总之，我们与专家一起概述了瑞士养牛场的五种主要生产类型，并开发了一个模型，该模型允许使用国家数据集对养牛场进行可重复的逐年分类。我们灵活的方法可以适用于其他国家和数据集，使兽医当局能够在未来进行更高效、有针对性的疾病监测。
