Precision Livestock Farming

Precision livestock farming (PLF) concerns the use of sensor technology to monitor the lives of livestock animals continuously and in real-time, with the purpose to manage livestock welfare, health, productivity as well as environmental impact of the livestock sector. The current development of PLF technologies provides a new and innovative opportunity and may be essential in addressing the tail biting problem due to its complex aetiology. PLF technologies have future potential to assist the farmer in the prevention of tail biting through automatic detection of tail biting behaviour and through prediction of tail damage. While the latter has received the greatest attention in the literature, results so far are unsatisfying, probably due to the multifactorial nature of tail biting. Based on the existing literature, a decrease in individual daily voluntary feed intake and an increase in pigs with lowered tails are the best-established indicators as predictors of tail damage, although they are probably not specific to tail damage. Prediction models developed so far are limited to the use of already available sensor technology including water usage measured by water-flow meters and pen temperature measured by thermometers; again, predictors shown not to be specific to tail damage. PLF technology also have future potential to assist the farmer in the prevention of tail biting by automatic risk factor assessment resulting in advice for the farmer on the most appropriate intervention strategy. These above-described potentials highly depend on the development of automatic monitoring methods for pig behaviour, physiology, and environmental parameters. Thus, the use of PLF technology to address the tail biting problem is currently limited by accuracy and reliability of such methods; a limitation that will hopefully diminish in the future with developments in technology and modelling techniques.