Improving mobile sheep walk-over weighing system designed for quick, easy and accurate evaluation of herds’ status in field

Study of Channel-Type Dynamic Weighing System for Goat Herds

“…At present, most of the weighing scales in the domestic market are made by adding a fence to the bench scale, which not only restricts the action of the goats but also requires manual counting and recording of ear tags and weight information, which is inefficient due to the amount of required manual labor; this can also be inaccurate. Dynamic scales squeeze the goats into a small space so that they cannot move for the measurements, which is more efficient but can be slow and costly to maintain [4][5][6]. Both of these methods can frighten the goats, lowering their immunity and increasing the incidence of disease, which is not conducive to healthy goat growth.…”

Growth and behaviour of post-weaned Mérinos d'Arles ewe lambs, as measured by a Walk-over-Weighing system under Mediterranean grazing conditions.

“…Furthermore, the picture is poorer when the flock is reared on pasture, because its includes, for example, transportation of animals to the barn/handling area where the weighing platform is located or, vice versa, creating weighing and handling facilities within the paddock. Solutions using Walkover-Weighing (WoW) systems, have been previously tested on adult ewes to measure LW without human intervention (Brown et al, 2012;González-García et al, 2018a, 2018b, 2021Morris et al, 2012;Polat et al, 2013). The WoW has been demonstrated to be less stressful compared with human handling and capable of collecting a much higher volume, and with a higher frequency, of LW records per unit of time compared to the standard static weighing system (Brown et al, 2014a;González-García et al , 2018a, 2018b, 2021.…”

“…The WoW has been demonstrated to be less stressful compared with human handling and capable of collecting a much higher volume, and with a higher frequency, of LW records per unit of time compared to the standard static weighing system (Brown et al, 2014a;González-García et al , 2018a, 2018b, 2021. Even if this system seems highly promising, there are still only few reports on the use of this technology in small ruminants (and here only for sheep) and most of them have tested the WoW only with adult females, sometimes with their lambs (Brown et al, 2012;González-García et al, 2021, 2018bMorris et al, 2012;Polat et al, 2013). The objective of the current work is to push forward the state of the art on this matter, by testing the use of the WoW for monitoring the progression of individual LW (growth rate) in recently weaned ewe lambs under grazing conditions.…”