FEED TECHNOLOGY ▶▶▶
The rise of smart livestock feeding
Smart livestock feeding is all about continuous monitoring and controlling feeding processes. It’s the way forward for farmers who wish to optimise diets, welfare and costs.
BY SAMANEH AZARPAJOUH AND HOSSEIN TAHERI, USA T
Automatic feeders provide pigs with the right amount of feed for their individual needs.
he increased demand for animal products − as well as higher standards of sustainability and animal welfare − puts the individual animal even more in focus. Smart livestock feeding is a logical result of
this. This approach is based on accurate determination of the available nutrients in feed ingredients, precise diet formu- lation, and meeting the nutrient needs of an individual or group of animals in real time in order to maximise nutrient utilisation without loss of performance. Dr Candido Pomar from the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) said at the 2020 Animal Nutrition Conference of Canada that using smart livestock feeding can reduce protein intake by 25%, nitrogen excretion into the environment by 40%, while increasing profitability by nearly 10%.
Advantages for farmer and animal Smart livestock feeding represents a breakthrough in livestock nutrition and is one of the most promising ways to promote safe, high-quality animal products such as meat and milk, high animal welfare, and minimal impact on the environment. Smart livestock feeding systems control the entire feeding process of livestock and make it possible to feed animals in line with their needs. Smart livestock feeding allows real-time off-farm monitoring and intelligent management of feeds and
animals, reduces costs, improves economic efficiency, reduces labour requirements, saves time and feed, keeps animals in great condition, reduces environmental and health stressors, cuts antibiotic use, increases feed efficiency, and keeps animals highly productive with less metabolic stress.
Implementation Implementation of smart livestock feeding systems in com- mercial farms requires continuous automatic data collection, data processing, and production system control.
Data collection Automatic continuous measurement of physical parameters such as feed intake, body weight, body composition, physical activity, interactions among animals will allow more precise es- timation of nutrient requirements and real-time feed monitor- ing. Based on the physical parameter type to be measured, a variety of different sensors can be designed and implemented.
Data processing The data thus collected needs to be processed according to the farm production objectives. To control nutrient intake in animals fed ad libitum, the feed composition needs to vary. Therefore, both between-animal variation and time-depend- ent nutrient requirement variation can be controlled. But in animals that are offered feed restrictively the amount and the composition of the feed can be easily controlled. In the next step, mathematical models designed to operate in real time using real-time system measurements are used for data processing in smart livestock feeding.
Production system control The information collected and processed is used to control the on-farm production system. In the context of smart livestock feeding, automatic feeders are used to provide individual animals with the right amount and composition of the feed at a given time. Each animal wears a unique radio frequency identification device tag that identifies it at the feeder. Then the automatic feeder dispenses the exact amount of feed needed for each animal. Animals tend to leave the feeder trough empty or leave very small amounts of feed after each visit, thus ensuring that each individual receives the assigned amount of blended feed. The weigh-
28 ▶ ALL ABOUT FEED | Volume 29, No. 9, 2021
PHOTO: VAN ASSENDELFT FOTOGRAFIE
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