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The case provides an opportunity for undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students to demonstrate a practical application of supply chain modeling in the area of livestock management for a group of rural communities in India. An animal husbandry department needs to ensure timely replenishment of liquid nitrogen to several livestock locations to preserve semen straws, which are frozen for artificial insemination. The department wishes to explore a possible route redesign for cost reduction. The description in the case, as well as the presented data, is based on a real project undertaken by the authors. The case enables students to conceptualize and design sample routes manually to meet the cost objective. However, the main objective is to make students understand and implement solution heuristics for large-scale vehicle routing problems. It also allows students to compare various designs trying not only possible vehicle capacities but also three solution heuristics. Nevertheless, students can also realize the importance of the spreadsheet as a decision support tool for evaluating several options by integrating the chosen heuristic. An important milestone of the case project was the implementation of our recommendations by the animal husbandry department.

The use of sensors for monitoring livestock has opened up new possibilities for the management of livestock in extensive grazing systems. The work presented in this paper aimed to develop a model for predicting the metabolisable energy intake (MEI) of sheep by using temperature, pitch angle, roll angle, distance, speed, and grazing time data obtained directly from wearable sensors on the sheep. A Deep Belief Network (DBN) algorithm was used to predict MEI, which to our knowledge, has not been attempted previously. The results demonstrated that the DBN method could predict the MEI for sheep using sensor data alone. The mean square error (MSE) values of 4.46 and 20.65 have been achieved using the DBN model for training and testing datasets, respectively. We also evaluated the influential sensor data variables, i.e., distance and pitch angle, for predicting the MEI. Our study demonstrates that the application of machine learning techniques directly to on-animal sensor data presents a substantial opportunity to interpret biological interactions in grazing systems directly from sensor data. We expect that further development and refinement of this technology will catalyse a step-change in extensive livestock management, as wearable sensors become widely used by livestock producers.

International audience; Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are being extensively deployed in numerous Livestock Management applications such as cattle disease diagnosis, counting and behavioral monitoring from videos and images captured by drones.The paper focuses on one increasingly important family of applications, UAV-assisted cattle monitoring applications where the objective is to remotely acquire some health state information from IoT nodes attached to the herding cattle. Such livestock data acquisition applications have many challenges. One of these challenges, which is the focus of this paper, is the problem that the target cattle position may not be known precisely, and might be defined with a large area. To address this issue, we design a formulation of this UAV-cattle search path problem as a mathematical optimization problem and show how it can be derived from other well-known formulation and related literature. A Mixed-Integer linear Programming (MILP) formulation is introduced to minimize the expected search time while covering all the search area to efficiently locate the animal. This formulation exploits a cattle position probability distribution map. The results show that the suggested approach yields excellent results using the existing MILP solvers.

The techniques of agriculture and animal husbandry at Tell Humeida, a Middle Uruk Period (Late Chalcolithic) site on the middle Syrian Euphrates, were studied using stable isotopes of bone collagen of domestic and wild mammals and from cereal and ruderal plant seeds. Two archaeological campaigns in 2009 and 2011 yielded a small collection of bones, most of which were taxonomically indeterminable. The work had to be interrupted due to the political conflict. The faunal study comprised collagen peptide fingerprinting for taxonomic identification, followed by isotopic analysis. Multiple 14C dating were performed to date the infill to around 3600 cal BC. An isotopic analysis of the sparse plant remains suggested that irrigation and manuring were common practices. Sheep and equids predominated in the faunal assemblage. Sheep grazed on manured soils, and their diet could include millet or another C4 plant, of which, however, no carpological remains were found. The diet of equids differed from that of sheep but also that of other wild ungulates (cervids/gazelles). Their isotopic signatures indicated that they grazed in humid areas, near the watercourse. These finds indicated a settlement that was closely linked to the availability of water, which made it possible to grow crops in an almost desert-like area, and the rearing of sheep.

The adoption potential of alley farming as an agro-intervention system capable of providing fodder to small ruminant livestock in southern parts of Nigeria is evaluated in this paper. Data were collected from a total of 240 respondents through the use of structured questionnaire in some selected communities of the south-western (SW) and south-eastern (SE) parts of Nigeria where the agro-intervention had been introduced in the past. Data analysis showed that ownership of small ruminants is more popular among households in savannah zone than forest zone, and among current and former alley farmers than non-alley farmers with browse being the most preferred feed given to the livestock. The management indicators showed that the care of the animals is generally the responsibility of all family members. The data suggest that the introduction of alley farming to produce supplemental feed for livestock may not gain quick adoption in areas with local sources of browse notably in the forest zone. The paper then concluded that the introduction of alley farming to produce supplemental fodder may be an innovation more suited to livestock owners' needs in the mid-term future, rather than immediately.

We compared animal and vegetation responses of a 13 600-ha area under holistic grazing management (HGM) with a similar area under continuous grazing (CGM) in a Patagonian station. Limitations were a dry 2012 −2016 experimental period, poorer soils, and grazing of native guanacos (Lama guanicoe) in the HGM area. Forage standing crop in this area before the experience was lower and remained so during the study: (194 ±31 HGM vs. 244 ±33 kg dry matter . ha −1 CGM). Six monitoring sites showed similar and remarkable (though mostly nonsignificant) vegetation improvements in total cover (10.6% HGM vs. 10.9% CGM) and cover of short palatable grasses (21.4% vs. 23.9%, respectively). Species richness showed small changes ( −1 vs. −6%), bare soil interpatches decreased ( −11.9 vs. −5.4%), and land function indicators of Stability (5.4% vs. 9.9%), Infiltration (12.4% vs. 12.0%), and Nutrient recycling (4.2% vs. 20.6%) increased. Tussock cover changed significantly with grazing management, as it decreased −6% (ns) in HGM and grew 42% ( P = 0.03) under CGM, probably due to coarse tussock forage consumption in HGM. Sheep under HGM were 15% lighter (43.9 ±0.5 HGM vs. 51.7 ±0.5 kg . ewe −1 CGM P < 0.001), ewes scored 28% lower body condition (1.60 vs. 2.25, P < 0.001), and lambing rates were 36% lower (48.3 ±2.1% vs . 74.2 ±1.9%). Rotation ended in 2015 as a consequence of low lambing rates, and sheep body condition and reproductive rates recovered to similar values in both areas. Positive vegetation changes in both areas may be driven by residual effects of destocking 3 decades ago and show that improvement is possible using moderate stocking rates. Although it could be argued that rest periods of HGM may be positive in the long term, its negative effects on animal production should be addressed, and fast regeneration using intense management in these severely restricted habitats should not be expected. Slow, persistent progress under careful management seems achievable under both grazing systems. EEA Santa Cruz Fil: Oliva, Gabriel Esteban. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Santa Cruz; Argentina. Fil: Oliva, Gabriel Esteban. Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral. Unidad Académica Río Gallegos; Argentina. Fil: Ferrante, Daniela. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Santa Cruz; Argentina. Fil: Ferrante, Daniela. Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral. Unidad Académica Río Gallegos; Argentina. Fil: Cepeda, Carla Tamara. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Santa Cruz; Argentina. Fil: Humano, Gervasio. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Santa Cruz; Argentina. Fil: Puig, Silvina. Actividad Privada. Estancia Los Pozos. Santa Cruz; Argentina

Livestock is the most important sector for the economy of Punjab which is performing a vital role in rural livelihoods as a key source of employment for women at the household level. Rural women play a significant role in livestock management activities and this sector is also considered the black gold of Pakistan.

Interactions between livestock management practices and toxicological outcomes of mycotoxin exposure may explain the range of tolerable toxin levels reported for various species. In the current study, we investigated the effect of concurrent mycotoxin exposure with a high starch diet in 12 beef steers in a partial cross-over experiment using a 21-day treatment period, followed by a 14-day clearance. During the treatment period, animals were assigned to one of two diets: a low mycotoxin control total mixed ration (TMR) (0.2±0.1 mg deoxynivalenol (DON) and 0.2±0.2 mg fumonisins (FUM)/kg TMR) and a high mycotoxin TMR treatment (1.7±0.2 mg DON and 3.5±0.3 mg FUM/kg TMR). We evaluated the impacts of these mycotoxins on performance, physiology and biochemistry; and the ability of the clearance period to return animals to a naïve state in the cross-over model. The lack of acute ruminal acidosis observed indicates that the animals were able to withstand the physiological stresses of the high starch diet, while toxicological outcomes were manifested in minor perturbations of biochemistry and outright performance of exposed animals. Aspartate aminotransferase, cholesterol, fibrinogen and leukocyte count were increased while sorbitol dehydrogenase, bile acids and mean corpuscular volume were decreased in treatment-fed steers, yet were not significantly different than those from control-fed animals. Fusarium toxin exposure significantly decreased ruminal fluid pH, with the clearance period returning animals to a naïve state, as it did for most of the molecular variables measured. Conversely, treatment-fed animals continued to exhibit significantly lower average weekly body weight throughout the treatment period and the first week of the clearance period. While the risk of adverse health effects to fattening cattle from similar doses of DON or FUM as used in the current study is considered low, additional work should be directed towards minimising production losses due to these feed contaminants.

In northwest Cambodia, the majority of smallholder households own livestock. Poor consistency in feed supply throughout the year is a major constraint to livestock performance. Another critical cha...

espanolLa calidad del aire es un factor importante en la ganaderia intensiva, ya que el aire es el principal vehiculo para la difusion de agentes fisicos, quimicos y biologicos que afectan la salud y el bienestar de los animales y los humanos. El amoniaco es el principal gas contaminante generado en la produccion avicola. En este estudio, se realizo una revision de la literatura con el fin de resaltar cada etapa de transformacion de nitrogeno en la produccion avicola, explicando los mecanismos de conversion desde la ingestion de proteina cruda hasta la volatilizacion en la atmosfera como gas de amoniaco. En resumen, estos pasos son: sintesis de acido urico y excrecion por las aves de corral; mineralizacion de nitrogeno presente en excretas; volatilizacion de amoniaco de la basura. De esta revision, queda claro la importancia de conocer las fuentes y los procesos involucrados en la generacion y emision de amoniaco en las aves de corral y, por lo tanto, adoptar medidas asertivas que puedan minimizar los impactos negativos causados por la emision de amoniaco EnglishAir quality is a major factor in intensive livestock management because air is the main vehicle for the dissemination of physical, chemical, and biological agents that affect the health and welfare of animals and humans. Ammonia is the main gaseous pollutant generated in poultry production. In this study, a literature review was conducted to highlight each nitrogen transformation stage during poultry production, while explaining the conversion mechanisms from the ingestion of crude protein to nitrogen volatilization into the atmosphere as ammonia gas. In summary, the steps for the synthesis of uric acid and the excretion of poultry, mineralization of nitrogen present in excreta, and volatilization of ammonia from litter are presented. Based on this review, the importance of understanding the sources and processes involved in ammonia generation and emission in poultry production is clear, thereby allowing the adoption of assertive measures that could minimize negative effects caused by ammonia emission

Consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for yogurt attributes was evaluated using a survey targeted to be nationally representative within the United States. A novel approach was used to allow for self-selection into the choice experiment for commonly purchased types of yogurt, either Greek or traditional, based on what consumers purchase. They were willing to pay a positive amount for requiring pasture access and not permitting dehorning/disbudding (which references the removal of horns or horn buds) for both traditional and Greek yogurt. Respondents had positive WTP for Greek yogurt labeled free of high-fructose corn syrup and a higher WTP for low-fat yogurt when compared to nonfat for both yogurt types.

The agricultural and livestock research, education, and extension are important components for increasing production and meeting the demands of the growing population with sustainability. In this context, knowledge or information is very critical for improving the production under the present extension delivery system in India. Several studies have highlighted emerging ICTs which have the potential to reach the mass population at a limited time despite traditional media. One such emerging ICT is Social Media, which is utilized by most of the stakeholders, including farmers around the globe. Hence, for documenting its application for livestock information needs among the livestock farmers, an ex-post-facto exploratory study was conducted in Southern Karnataka using 108 purposively selected farmers, which comprised of 36 farmers each belonging to dairy, poultry and sheep and goat husbandry with pre-tested structured interview schedule. Majority of the farmers in each category were aware about social media and possessed social media accounts with highest number of WhatsApp accounts being possessed by the farmers. Social media was utilized for obtaining information about latest livestock production and management practices in all the categories. From these findings, it could be elucidated that the respondents predominantly perceived that social media had higher benefits in attaining livestock related information and adoption of digital knowledge into practice.

Livestock identification is of great significance for achieving precision livestock farming as it is a prerequisite of modern livestock management and automatic behaviour analysis. With respect to cow identification, methods based on computer vision have been widely considered due to their advantage of non-contact and practicality. In this paper, a novel non-contact cow identification method based on fusion of deep parts features is proposed. First, a set of side-view images of cows were captured, and then the YOLO object detection model was applied to locate the cow object in each original image, which was then divided into three parts, head, trunk and legs, by a part segmentation algorithm using frame differencing and segmentation span analysis. Then, three independent convolutional neural networks (CNNs) were trained to extract deep features from these three parts, and a feature fusion strategy was designed to fuse the features, i.e., deep parts feature fusion. Finally, a support vector machine (SVM) classifier trained by the fused features was used to identify each individual cow. The proposed method achieved 98.36% cow identification accuracy on a dataset containing side-view images of 93 cows, which outperformed existing works. Experimental results showed the effectiveness of the proposed cow identification method and the good potential for this method in individual identification of other livestock.

Climate change is disturbing the existing functional relations between socio-ecological systems in the Himalayan region of Nepal. In this paper, I look at the disturbance posed by climate change to the social and ecological dimensions, referencing the Himalayan herders as eye-witnesses. I focus on two thematic areas, that is, the challenges faced by the mountain herders in the context of climate change and their coping strategies. This paper is a product of nine months of ethnographic study between the years 2012 and 2018 conducted at the Nhāson valley. The herders' stories are “real stories” with insights into the climate variability and fluctuation, which is critically valuable to understand the environmental phenomena at a time when scientific evidence is not enough. In this context, an ethnographic study can contribute in documenting the place-specific and culture-specific stories as the powerful evidence to climate change and how it impacts the grounded social and ecological systems.

The Northern Bolivian Altiplano is the fascioliasis endemic area with the reported highest human prevalence and intensities. A multidisciplinary One Health initiative was implemented to decrease infection/reinfection rates detected by periodic monitoring between the ongoing yearly preventive chemotherapy campaigns. Within a One Health axis, the information obtained throughout 35 years of field work on transmission foci and affected rural schools and communities/villages is analysed. Aspects linked to human infection risk are quantified, including: (1) geographical extent of the endemic area, its dynamics, municipalities affected, and its high strategic importance; (2) human population at risk, community development and mortality rates, with emphasis on problems in infancy and gender; (3) characteristics of the freshwater collections inhabited by lymnaeid snail vectors and constituting transmission foci; (4) food infection sources, including population surveys with questionnaire and reference to the most risky edible plant species; (5) water infection sources; (6) household characteristics; (7) knowledge of the inhabitants on Fasciola hepatica and the disease; (8) behavioural, traditional, social, and religious aspects; (9) livestock management. This is the widest and deepest study of this kind ever performed. Results highlight prevention and control difficulties where inhabitants follow century-old behaviours, traditions, and beliefs. Intervention priorities are proposed and discussed.

Recently, drone technologies have advanced, and their safety and operability have markedly improved, leading to their increased application in animal research. Drones of various sizes and functionalities are readily available commercially and are relatively simple to obtain. This study demonstrated drone application in livestock management, using its technology to observe horse behavior and verify the appropriate horse–drone distance for aerial behavioral observations. Recordings were conducted from September to October 2017 on 11 horses using the Phantom 4 Pro drone. Four flight altitudes were tested (60, 50, 40, and 30 m) to investigate the reactions of the horses to the drones and observe their behavior; the recording time at each altitude was 5 min. None of the horses displayed avoidance behavior at any flight altitude, and the observer was able to distinguish between any two horses. Recorded behaviors were foraging, moving, standing, recumbency, avoidance, and others. Foraging was the most common behavior observed both directly and in the drone videos. The correlation coefficients of all behavioral data from direct and drone video observations at all altitudes were significant (p < 0.01). These results indicate that horse behavior can be discerned with equal accuracy by both direct and recorded drone video observations. In conclusion, drones can be useful for recording and analyzing horse behavior.

Images taken by drones often must be preprocessed and stitched together due to the inherent noise, narrow imaging breadth, flying height, and angle of view. Conventional UAV feature-based image stitching techniques significantly rely on the quality of feature identification, made possible by image pixels, which frequently fail to stitch together images with few features or low resolution. Furthermore, later approaches were developed to eliminate the issues with conventional methods by using the deep learning-based stitching technique to collect the general attributes of remote sensing images before they were stitched. However, since the images have empty backgrounds classified as stitched points, it is challenging to distinguish livestock in a grazing area. Consequently, less information can be inferred from the surveillance data. This study provides a four-stage object-based image stitching technique that, before stitching, removes the background’s space and classifies images in the grazing field. In the first stage, the drone-based image sequence of the livestock on the grazing field is preprocessed. In the second stage, the images of the cattle on the grazing field are classified to eliminate the empty spaces or backgrounds. The third stage uses the improved SIFT to detect the feature points of the classified images to o8btain the feature point descriptor. Lastly, the stitching area is computed using the image projection transformation.

Pastoralism in Central Asia directed the utilization of natural resources, yet information on livestock management strategies remain scarce. Carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) isotope analyses of domesticated sheep teeth are used to identify animal management strategies. Sheep from Kent exhibit an inverserelationship where low δ18O values coincide with high δ13C values, consistent with the foddering of caprines in the winter for this location which occursalongside evidence for an extended lambing season. At the high altitude encampment of Turgen, Bronze Age sheep exhibit low δ18O values that coincide withhigh δ13C values, suggesting that livestock were moved to low altitude pastures in the winter months. Iron Age sheep sequences also have an inverserelationship, where low δ18O values coincide with high δ13C values, yet high δ13C values in the winter suggest that livestock were foddered. Our findingsindicate variation in livestock management strategies with distinct adaptations to local ecologies.

Rudimentary non-market-oriented pig rearing systems have been implicated in the persistence of Taenia solium cysticercosis, an endemic disease of high public health concern in Uganda. We investigated the seroprevalence and key predisposing factors of the disease in Moyo and Lira, two pig-producing districts in Northern Uganda. Cross-sectional serosurveys were conducted in 428 pig farms (Moyo, 262; Lira, 166). Farmers kept on average two adult pigs per herd. Tethering was a common practice in rural areas; free-ranging less so. Confinement of pigs in pens was characteristic of periurban farming systems. Pigs were mainly fed crop residues and forages in the rainy season, and swill and crop residues in the dry season. The majority of farmers of the survey were women (55%) above 45 years old, and 51% of farmers had attained primary school education. A total of 723 pig serum samples were collected, 403 in Moyo, and 320 in Lira. They were analyzed for Taenia spp. antigens using B158C11A10/B60H8A4 Antigen-ELISA. The overall animal seroprevalence of Taenia spp. serum antigen was 10.4% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 4.9–17.6), with 13.2% (95% CI: 7.1– 21.2) the highest in Moyo vs 6.9% (95% CI: 2.9–13.9) in Lira. The herd-level seroprevalence was estimated at 13.7% (95% CI: 9.8–18.5) in Moyo and 11.4% (95% CI: 7.0–17.2) in Lira. Out of 12 explanatory variables assessed for association with the observed seroprevalence, only the district of origin was significant (p = 0.01). Pigs originating from Lira were a protective factor against Taenia spp. cysticercosis (odds ratio: 0.54). These findings highlight the urgent need for an awareness campaign with prevention and control measures to minimize the risk of transmission to pork consumers in these districts.

Negative interactions between people and large carnivores are common and will probably increase as the human population and livestock production continue to expand. Livestock predation by wild carnivores can significantly affect the livelihoods of farmers, resulting in retaliatory killings and subsequent conflicts between local communities and conservationists. A better understanding of livestock predation patterns could help guide measures to improve both human relationships and coexistence with carnivores. Environmental variables can influence the intensity of livestock predation, are relatively easy to monitor, and could potentially provide a useful predictive framework for targeting mitigation. We chose lion predation of livestock as a model to test whether variations in environmental conditions trigger changes in predation. Analysing 6 years of incident reports for Pandamatenga village in Botswana, an area of high human–lion conflict, we used generalized linear models to show that significantly more attacks coincided with lower moonlight levels and temperatures, and attack severity increased significantly with extreme minimum temperatures. Furthermore, we found a delayed effect of rainfall: lower rainfall was followed by a significantly increased severity of attacks in the following month. Our results suggest that preventative measures, such as introducing deterrents or changing livestock management, could be implemented adaptively based on environmental conditions. This could be a starting point for investigating similar effects in other large carnivores, to reduce livestock attacks and work towards wider human–wildlife coexistence.

Almost all organisms on earth are adapted to anticipate daily environmental cycles and synchronize with these approximately 24-h rhythms by a circadian clock system. Given its importance to organismal success, the field of chronobiology is rapidly expanding unraveling the complex and integral role circadian clocks play. In applied science, these new insights have led to major advances mainly in the field of medicine. In the field of plant rearing and livestock management, the importance of circadian clocks is already acknowledged. Integrating circadian clocks in insect pest management has mainly received theoretical attention. Applying theory to practice is likely delayed because of the difficulty in managing an open environment. The storage environment is easier to control and therefore basic ideas of integrating circadian clocks to pest management could be applied. A cardinal difficulty in storage management is that storage insects develop resistance to common pesticides. This difficulty can be addressed by various manipulations of the insect's chronobiology. In this review, I discuss the various clock-driven behavioural, physiological and genomic processes that might be considered as sensitive targets for agro-chronobiology control. I further suggest that to promote the discipline of agro-chronobiology, the contribution of previous and current studies to the two following approaches in agro-chronobiology should be examined: 1) treating the vulnerable phases of the circadian clock, and 2) distorting the circadian clock system.

We examine the dynamics of gender relations in terms of changes in gender roles and access to resources under recurrent drought conditions in Borana, Southern Ethiopia, using data from household surveys, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and field observations. Results show that in traditional Borana society, roles are structured on the basis of gender and age groups with women responsible for activities in and around their dwellings whereas men are responsible for livestock management. However, changes in pastoral production due to recurrent droughts seem to be transforming the gender roles so that women’s workload, areas of decision-making, and income-earning opportunities have increased.

Access to good-quality forages is one of the major limitations to livestock production in semi-arid pastoral systems. This study aimed to determine whether there are differences in the nutritional quality of diets selected by herded and free-ranging goat and sheep flocks utilising Namaqualand Granite Renosterveld vegetation during the wet and dry seasons. Plant samples collected along the grazing routes of livestock were dried and analysed for their fibre, condensed tannin, total phenolic and mineral nutrient contents. The study showed that a large variety of forages were on offer and livestock groups selected different diets of which some were different to the total diet on offer. In general, significant deficiencies in phosphate, protein and energy in the diets selected by herded and free-ranging goats and sheep were observed in both wet and dry season. The quality of the diets selected by herded and free-ranging livestock was also found to be different from each other, with herded livestock generally selecting more nutrient-dense diets. Herding, therefore, allows livestock to access better-quality forage in the Namaqualand Granite Renosterveld rangeland, where it is generally poor.Keywords: herding, Namaqualand Granite Renosterveld, pastoral livestock, protein deficiencies, small stock nutrition

Microbial communities in pasture and hayfield soils in upstate New York were studied to ascertain how land and livestock management practices influence microbial community structure. Three manageme...

Livestock management is an emerging area of application of the quadrotor, especially for monitoring, counting, detecting, recognizing, and tracking animals through image or video footage. The autonomous operation of the quadrotor requires the development of an obstacle avoidance scheme to avoid collisions. This research develops an obstacle avoidance-based autonomous navigation of a quadrotor suitable for outdoor applications in livestock management. A Simulink model of the UAV is developed to achieve this, and its transient and steady-state performances are measured. Two genetic algorithm-based PID controllers for the quadrotor altitude and attitude control were designed, and an obstacle avoidance algorithm was applied to ensure the autonomous navigation of the quadrotor. The simulation results show that the quadrotor flies to the desired altitude with a settling time of 6.51 s, an overshoot of 2.65%, and a steady-state error of 0.0011 m. At the same time, the attitude controller records a settling time of 0.43 s, an overshoot of 2.50%, and a zero steady-state error. The implementation of the obstacle avoidance scheme shows that the distance threshold of 1 m is sufficient for the autonomous navigation of the quadrotor. Hence, the developed method is suitable for managing livestock with the average size of an adult sheep.

An elaborate multiple regression analysis was done to arrive a nutrient requirement equation for goat including dry matter intake, DMI (kg/day), total digestible nutrient, TDN (g/day) and crude protein, CP (g/day) based on animal body weight (BW)(kg) and average daily gain (ADG)(g/day). The derived equations were highly significant (p

Introduction: The aim of this chapter were to collect the ethno-veterinary practices for prevention and cure of animal health conditions and associated flora from healers and knowledgeable dairy farmers and to rapidly assess these practices for their safety and efficacy. Methods: Participatory rural appraisal and matrix ranking are used for prioritization of the animal health conditions. The documented formulations were rapidly assessed for their safety and efficacy using rapid assessment methodology. Results: Local people used 248 species of plants belonging to 80 families for prevention and cure of animal health conditions. Out of 441 formulations using various plants, 353 are safe and efficacious. The majority of these medicinal plants belong to Leguminosae (27 species with 20 genera), Apiaceae (nine species), Cucurbitaceae (8 species), Euphorbiaceae (11 species) and Poaceae (14 species). Leaves are commonly used (34.42%) followed by roots, (11%), fruits (9.74%), seeds (8.76%), barks (8.76%, whole plant (3.57%) stem (3.25%) and rhizome (2.6%). Average expenditure incurred for animal health care by a household was Indian Rupees 726.00 with western veterinary treatment and Indian Rupees 42.4 with ethno-veterinary practices, saving Indian Rupees 684 per episode. Conclusion: In the community, there is a wealth of cost-effective conventional animal health information and services. In livestock management, ethno-veterinary methods are a feasible alternative to antibiotics and other chemical medicines.

China is the largest producer of livestock globally, and associated nutrient losses and greenhouse gases emission have substantially affected the environment and human health. Here we present a first detailed assessment of livestock systems using over 480,000 feedlot surveys over the period from 2007 to 2017 across China. Results indicate that China produced more livestock protein with fewer animal numbers and total pollution impacts through better breeding and feeding in large-scale feedlots over this period. Hotspots of production can be observed across the North China Plain, Northeastern China and Sichuan Basin. The Clean Water Act reduced manure nutrient losses to water by one third, while slightly increasing methane emissions over the study period. Integrated abatement measures could reduce more than half of livestock pollution in 2050, with benefits of 30 billion US dollar (USD) due to avoided human health, ecosystem and climate costs with only 6 billion USD abatement cost.

A total of 14696 semen records were collected from Friesian bulls, kept at International Livestock Management Training Center belonging to Animal Research Institute, Ministry of Agriculture, Dokki, Cairo. Traits studied were volume, motility, livability and sperm concentrates in other to construct selection indexes by using all combination between different traits of semen to improve semen traits in a herd of Friesian bull cattle. Data were analysed by using four traits repeatability model and includes effects of the following fixed factors: the age of animal at semen collection, the combined effect of the month and year of semen collection, and the number of times semen were collected per month. Semen motility, volume and livability were highly influenced (p 0.001) by all the fixed factors. Heritability estimates for semen traits were moderate and ranged from 0.29 to 0.33. All phenotypic and genetic correlations between different traits are positive and ranged from 0.09 to 0.67 for phenotypic correlations and from 0.02 to 0.68 for genetic correlations, while permanent environmental correlations ranged from -0.69 to 0.12. Estimated Breeding Values ranged from -0.68 to 0.78 ml for semen volume, from -13.17 to 7.34% for motility, from -259.42 × 10

Background: In arid and semi-arid ecosystems in Argentina, dominance of shrublands and the search to increase the forage supply for livestock motivates interventions such as roller-chopping and hand-cutting to reduce the abundance of shrubs. However, an integral analysis of the effects of these practices from a sustainability point of view, including not only forage productivity but also other ecosystem service is still missing. We evaluated at the ecosystem level the impact of shrub removal on total production and phenology; at the local level the responses in cover, botanical composition and diversity of vegetation functional groups, as well as the effects on soil physical properties. We combined evaluation methodologies with remote sensing and field sampling in control (woodland, shrubland) and treated (roller chopping, hand cutting) sites in 16 paddocks.Results: In treated sites, grass cover increased significantly compared to untreated sites. However, total production, growing season length were reduced. Tree cover was lower in treated sites, while shrub cover was reduced in the hand-cutting compared to the other treatments. Forbs cover was not modified. In addition, species richness decreased in the treated sites, being higher in roller-chopped sites than in the hand-cut sites, while the species diversity index was only reduced in the latter type of disturbance. Soil mechanical resistance and bulk density were higher in treated sites, while infiltration rate did not change.Conclusions: shrub removal and pasture seeding on woodland and shrubland sites increases herbaceous forage production, but decreases total production and increases its temporal variability and rainfall dependence; it decreases functional diversity and increases surface soil compaction. These responses depend on the intensity of the woody biomass removal disturbance (roller-chopping or hand-cutting). In this respect, roller chopping appears to be a more conservative practice than hand cutting, as it maintains high levels of herbaceous forage production and functional diversity. However, it is necessary to consider the importance of maintaining native forest regeneration, as both types of disturbance affected this process. Our study highlights the importance to design selective interventions in the vegetation, compatible with the maintenance of functional diversity, the regeneration of tree strata and the increase in grass production.

Este artículo se encuentra disponible en la siguiente URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014489421001065?via%3Dihub This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Ahuir-Baraja, A. E., Cibot, F., Llobat, L. & Garijo, M. M. (2021). Anthelmintic resistance: is a solution possible?. Experimental parasitology, vol. 230 (nov.), art. 108169, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exppara.2021.108169 Este es el post-print del siguiente artículo: Ahuir-Baraja, A. E., Cibot, F., Llobat, L. & Garijo, M. M. (2021). Anthelmintic resistance: is a solution possible?. Experimental parasitology, vol. 230 (nov.), art. 108169, que se ha publicado de forma definitiva en https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exppara.2021.108169 More than 50 years after anthelmintic resistance was first identified, its prevalence and impact on the animal production industry continues to increase across the world. The term “anthelmintic resistance” (AR) can be briefly defined as the reduction in efficacy of a certain dose of anthelmintic drugs (AH) in eliminating the presence of a parasite population that was previously susceptible. The main aim of this study is to examine anthelmintic resistance in domestic herbivores. There are numerous factors playing a role in the development of AR, but the most important is livestock management. The price of AH and the need to treat a high number of animals mean that farmers face significant costs in this regard, yet, since 1981, little progress has been made in the discovery of new molecules and the time and cost required to bring a new AH to market has increased dramatically in recent decades. Furthermore, resistance has also emerged for new AH, such as monepantel or derquantel. Consequently, ruminant parasitism cannot be controlled solely by using synthetic chemicals. A change in approach is needed, using a range of preventive measures in order to achieve a sustainable control programme. The use of nematophagous fungi or of plant extracts rich in compounds with anthelmintic properties, such as terpenes, condensed tannins, or flavonoids, represent potential alternatives. Nevertheless, although new approaches are showing promising results, there is still much to do. More research focused on the control of AR is needed.

In recent times, designated grazing areas/fields or routes for livestock grazing are usually defined. Hence, their herding activities’ success relies on data extracted from aerial photographs. As such, a direct and cost-effective way of monitoring livestock for perimeter coverage and in other natural situations is required. This paper presents a coverage solution involving multiple interacting unmanned aerial vehicles. The presented approach is built on a graph, with geographic coordinates set such that several Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can successfully cover the area. The maximum flying time determines the number of UAVs employed for coverage. The proposed solution is thought to solve some practical problems encountered during the execution of the task with actual UAVs. It is suitable for long-term monitoring of animal behavior under various weather conditions and observing the relationship between livestock distribution and available resources on a grazing field. The simulation was carried out using MATLAB and aerial images from Google Earth.

The Planet is home to many famed grasslands, which includes the Pampas, the Llanos, the Prairie, the Steppe, the Savannas, and the rangelands. The biome of grasslands, which is of various types, covers 40% of the Planet’s land surface. After depicting each of the world’s major grasslands, the present author explains two contributions of the grasslands to climate mitigation: carbon dioxide sinks by grasses, preservation of soil carbons. From an economic angle, the grasslands offer valuable resources for livestock management: pastures and forages. The global livestock production is expected to increase further in the coming decades as developing economies would grow with higher demands for meat, which has made climate activists worried about methane emissions from farm animals. This chapter clarifies three methane reduction technologies from livestock management: alternative livestock feeds, methane-eating microbes, a switch to non-ruminant animals. From a cultural perspective, the present author asks whether the humanity should become a vegetarian/vegan in order to reduce Planet-heating methane emissions.

Livestock management is a critical issue for the farming industry as proper management including their health and well-being directly impacts the production. It is difficult for a farmer or shed owner to monitor big herds of cattle manually. This chapter proposes a layered framework that utilizes the power of internet of things (IoT) and deep learning (DL) to real-time livestock monitoring supporting the effective management of cattle. The framework consists of sensor layer where sensor-rich devices or gadgets are used to collect various contextual data related to livestock, data processing layer which deals with various outlier rejections and processing of the data followed by DL approaches to analyze the collected contextual data in detecting sick and on heat animals, and finally, insightful information is sent to shed owner for necessary action. An experimental study conducted is helpful to make wise decisions to increase production cost-effectively. The chapter concludes with the different future aspects that may be further explored by the researchers.

The formation of branching patterns is commonly associated with electrical discharges. Lightning and electrostatic discharges from a Van DeGraff generator are transient luminous branching patterns, sometimes the passing of an electrical current leaves residual physical patterns. Such patterns can be captured in skin, sand, oil, and vegetation. Unfortunately for the fire investigator, patterns etched into wood-frame structures are often destroyed by subsequent combustion. Sometimes the patterns persist and can serve to indicate what actually happened. Char patterns were found etched into dry mustard plant, blackberry stalks, and Douglas fir. The first two were from current sourced by an electric fence charger (used for livestock management) and the third by contact between the tree and a power transmission line. Examples of how such patterns are formed are presented.

Human behaviour often determines the success of conservation projects, and the emerging discipline of conservation psychology focuses on understanding and influencing this behaviour. Social norms (a group’s perception of the appropriateness of behaviours) are a key influence on human behaviour, and social norms campaigns can often engender population-wide behaviour changes. Human-predator conflict is a major conservation issue, and one in which human behaviour plays a substantial role: high standards of livestock management can considerably lower predation levels. In this paper, we use factor analysis to show that the livestock management normative belief structure of rural livestock owners is highly conserved between populations in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Through cluster analysis, we also show that qualitatively distinct attitudinal groups can be identified, and that some of these groups are common to both regions. Researchers often assume that social landscapes are unique, but we show that this is not the case for livestock management norms. People’s attitudes are also generally assumed to be site-specific, but we found commonalities across different regions, indicating that certain attitude sectors may be present in all livestock owning populations. If livestock management norms and attitude groups are indeed highly conserved between regions, it may be possible to develop standardised tools with which to understand the norms that influence livestock management behaviour, and identify population sectors for targeted interventions. Often, conservation projects have little in-house social science expertise, and social studies are avoided despite the benefits they bring. Here, we demonstrate that standardised approaches may be possible, and could aid the implementation – and success – of conservation interventions.

Production systems can be optimized through intelligent systems that use the Internet of Things (IoT) and a network of sensors applied for this purpose. In this study, several alternatives focused on development in agribusiness are reviewed. A model is proposed that uses cutting-edge technology such as IoT and long-range, low-power networks to reduce the costs involved. The results reflect that sustainable development is based mainly on efficiency during the management of natural resources.

A North American livestock industries are diverse and of high value, consisting of very different animals and industries: beef cattle are raised for calves, meat, and leather; dairy animals for milk and veal; swine for pork; poultry for eggs and meat; and sheep for meat and wool. R. C. Axtell classifies livestock production systems as pasture or range, outdoor confined, and indoor confined. Detailed descriptions of the biology, taxonomy, host range, and management of livestock pests are available and should be consulted before starting a sampling program. Thresholds for many parasites in livestock production systems remain to be studied. Techniques for sampling arthropods in livestock systems have been previously summarized. Various livestock pests have free-living stages or periods in their life cycle. A diversity of domestic animals and management systems constitute livestock industries in Canada and the US As in other agricultural sectors, a variety of sampling approaches have been used to achieve management and research objectives.

Introduction to Sampling Arthropod Populations (L.P. Pedigo). Sampling Principles: Arthropod Sampling in Agricultural Landscapes: Ecological Considerations (D.A. Landis). Statistics for Describing Populations (P.M. Davis). Bias and Variability in Statistical Estimates (D.E. Legg and R.D. Moon). Sampling Techniques and Initial Program Development: Techniques for Sampling Arthropods in IPM (S.H. Hutchins). Developing a Primary Sampling Program (G.D. Buntin). Improving Sampling Program Efficiency: Initiating Sampling Programs (L.G. Higley and R.K.D. Peterson). Sequential Sampling for Classifying Pest Status (M.R. Binns). Sequential Estimation and Classification Procedures for Binomial Counts (V.P. Jones). Sequential Sampling to Determine Population Density (W.D. Hutchison). Sampling to Predict or Monitor Biological Control (J.P. Nyrop and W. van der Werf). Time-Sequential Sampling for Taking Tactical Action (L.P. Pedigo). Sampling Programs: Sampling Methods for Insect Management in Alfalfa (R. Berberet and W.D. Hutchison). Sampling Pest and Beneficial Arthropods of Apple (E.H. Beers, L.A. Hull, and V.P. Jones). Sampling Arthropod Pests in Citrus (J.D. Hare). Sampling Arthropod Pests in Corn (J.J. Tollefson and D.D. Calvin). Estimating Abundance Impact, and Interactions among Arthropods in Cotton Agroecosystems (L.T. Wilson). Sampling Arthropods in Livestock Management Systems (T.J. Lysyk and R.D. Moon). Sampling Programs for Soybean Arthropods (M.R. Zeiss and T.H. Klubertanz). Sampling Arthropod Pests in Vegetables (J.T. Trumble). Sampling Arthropod Pests of Wheat and Rice (N.E. Elliott, G.L. Hein, and B.M. Shepard). Implementation of Sampling Programs: Training Specialists in Sampling Procedures (G.W. Cuperus and R. Berberet). Designing and Delivering In-The-Field Scouting Programs (E.J. Bechinski).

Individual cattle identification plays an important role for automation in precision livestock management. Existing methods for cattle identification require radio frequency and visual ear tags, all of which are prone to loss or damage. In this work, we propose a deep learning-based framework to identify beef cattle using image sequences, unifying merits of both Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) network methods. A CNN (Inception-V3) was used to extract features from a video dataset taken of the rear-view of cattle, after which extracted features were fed to a BiLSTM layer to capture spatial-temporal information enabling the identification of each individual animal. A total of 363 rear-view videos of 50 cattle were collected for our dataset. The proposed method achieved 91% identification accuracy using a 30-frame video length, improving that of Inception-V3 use or LSTM. Additionally, increasing video sequence length to 30-frames enhanced identification performance. Our approach can use spatial-temporal features to identify cattle, and enables automated identification for precision livestock farming.

Under the National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) project, demonstrating site-specific technology packages on farmers’ fields with their active participation for adapting to current climate risks and building up the capacity of the farmers in climate resilient agriculture, activities were planned and executed under natural resource management, crop production, livestock management and institutional intervention modules during the years from 2011 to 2018 at Telangi village of Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh by Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Kinnaur. Different need-based interventions were implemented through the village climate risk management committee and were evaluated in terms of measurable indicators alongwith critical evaluation for economic implications. Adoption of successful interventions has been replicated in the villages adjoining the NICRA village resulting into formation of NICRA cluster.