Social Welfare
Multi-sensory mesh for the evaluation of animal welfare with special consideration of the social behaviour of horses in group housing
The subject is animal-friendly horse husbandry. The aim is to objectively evaluate animal welfare and optimise group compositions by developing a sensor-based monitoring system in the form of a multi-sensory muzzle. For this purpose, movement data for behavioural analysis and vital data for the detection of stress are merged and evaluated using suitable deep learning methods. A significant challenge is the analysis of social behaviour and its visualisation, which requires not only analysing the interaction of horses in a group, but also quantifying the activity budget on an individual animal basis. Finally, this approach is combined with the recording of individual personality traits and ultimately enables the effects of different forms of husbandry to be assessed. This is the first time that a system has been developed that records the individually optimal conditions and identifies potential for optimisation. Target customers are stud farms, equine performance centres and horse boarding operators.
Project management:
Prof. Dr. Edna Hillmann
Project staff:
Michaela Schulz
Involved organization:
N.N.
Financer:
N.N.
Duration of project:
02/2024 - 01/2027