‘uSuckled’: Detection of maternal behaviours associated with suckling in beef cattle
Over the 2021 to 2022 calving season at Katherine Research Station, 30 Brahman heifers will be equipped with ear-tag sensors capable of generating constant GPS, sound and time series tri-axel accelerometer data. Their behaviours will be monitored to investigate whether suckling events can be detected remotely, using devices like accelerometers, sound monitors and GPS trackers attached to open-grazing beef cows.
This research has been led by the Department of Industry, Tourism and Trade’s Dr Kieren McCosker in partnership with the University of Queensland’s Professor Michael McGowan and CSIRO’s Greg Bishop-Hurley. The study contributes to a suite of Meat and Livestock Australia-funded research projects investigating reproductive wastage in the northern beef industry.
As suckling tends to occur within two to three hours after birth under normal conditions, detection of suckling is a good proxy indicator of calf wellbeing. To suckle, a calf first needs to be able to stand, seek out the udder and attach to the teats. The ability to remotely describe maternal behaviours associated with suckling would provide a non-invasive, remotely detectable, dam-based method to approximate when a calf has been born and whether the calf was born alive. Remote monitoring can also indicate if the calf suckled normally or not, and whether the occurrence of suckling stopping prematurely indicates a self-weaning or mortality event. When combined with output from current calving alert technology, the detection of suckling events would support the capture of time between detection of early labour to first suckle, potentially supporting identification of calves with poor suckling reflexes or calves exposed to prolonged labour or dystocia events.
The effect of suckling (frequency and duration) on cows is also known to prolong the interval to first oestrus postpartum and is likely to be associated with change in liveweight due to the high-energy demand of lactation. Accurately detecting nursing behaviours would allow frequency and duration of suckling events to be described and their association with performance investigated. This information would provide further insight on the key drivers of liveweight production of commercial beef herds in northern Australia.
In January 2021, a fixed-time artificial insemination program was successfully undertaken at Beatrice Hill Research Station to generate heifers with known dates of conception and expected calving. In October the heifers were equipped with sensors and collars able to store data streamed from the ear-tag sensors. Data stored on the collars will be downloaded at the end of the trial for analysis and algorithm development. A Calf Alert intra-vaginal sensor will also be inserted into each heifer to detect parturition. As soon as practical after a birth, the calf will also be fitted with an ear-tag sensor capable of generating data to detect when it is suckling a cow.
Behavioural observations during set periods for seven consecutive days after a calving event and reduced to one day of observation per week until weaning will be completed to allow transcription of the sensor data to represent different behaviours. This process will employ machine-learning modelling procedures to identify accelerometer signatures that correspond to cow and calf behaviours.
More information
To stay updated on this project check out the Future Beef website.