The use of accelerometer to measure sleeping posture of beef cows

Abstract

Sleep is one of the essential behaviors for mammals. The aims of this study were to validate the use of accelerometer for measuring sleeping posture of cattle. Duration of sleeping posture of seven Japanese Black cows from 19.00 to 07.00 hours was measured by both accelerometer and video, and a total of 67 accelerometer and video measurement sets were collected. We calculated Cohen's κ coefficient between accelerometer and video measurements and 91.5% of the κ-values were >0.80. Intra- and inter-observer coefficient of variance showed that specific acceleration waveform patterns of sleeping posture could be easily and accurately detected by independent observers. There were no significant differences in the frequency of sleeping posture occurrences between accelerometer and video measurements. We compared averaged sleeping posture bout, and the total sleeping posture time between accelerometer and video measurements using regression. In each trait, the slope was close to 1 and the intercept was not different from 0, which showed a strong agreement between accelerometer and video measurements. This shows that an accelerometer could accurately detect sleeping postures of cattle. We conclude that adequate measurements of sleeping postures can be made using an accelerometer.

Sleep and lying behavior of milking Holstein cows at commercial tie‐stall dairy farms

“…This outcome may be due to comfort level in different seasons, as multiple studies (Gomez & Cook, ; Ito et al, ; Tucker, Weary, & Fraser, ) have suggested that longer lying bout duration indicated greater comfort levels. Indeed, when pregnant Japanese black cows were moved into new tie‐stall sheds, they lied more frequent with shorter bout duration and slept less frequent with longer bout duration (Fukusawa et al, ). Thus, our observations here suggest that cows were less comfortable during summer under hot and humid condition.…”

“…Five pregnant Holstein cows which milk in days were more than 90 days from each farm were arbitrarily selected at each season. The sleep posture of cow was measured 24 hr using an accelerometer (HOBO‐U12‐012, Onset, MA) fixed on the middle occipital with a halter (Fukasawa et al, ). All measurement started at noon.…”

“…There are some studies about cow's sleep under experimental condition (Fukasawa, Komatsu, & Higashiyama, ; Fukasawa, Komatsu, Higashiyama, & Oshibe, ; Krohn & Munksgaard, ; Ninomiya & Sato, ; Norring, Valros, & Munksgaard, ; Phillips & Rind, ; Ruckebusch, ). However, there is not on farm study about cow's sleep because the sleep observation on farm can be a difficult and impractical task due to the following reasons: (a) most cattle sleep during night (Ruckebusch, ); (b) sleep bouts can be short (Ruckebusch, ); and (c) the presence of an observer could affect natural sleep behavior.…”

“…Information about sleep on farm would be a first step for considering how and what factors influence on cow's sleep. Recently, Fukasawa et al () developed the easy and simple detection method of sleep posture, that cow adopt with their neck relaxed and their head against their flank in a lying position, using commercial accelerometer fixed on cow's middle occipital. Therefore, the aim of this study is to clarify cow's sleep behavior on farm and to examine the influence of some environment and management factors on cow's sleep.…”

Detection of Steer Defecation Events using an Accelerometer

“…De Passillé et al (2010) and Ledgerwood et al (2010) fitted a three-axis accelerometer on the leg and classified the gait patterns (galloping, trotting, and walking) of calves and the lying/standing behaviors of dairy cows, respectively. Fukasawa et al (2018) measured the sleeping posture of cattle in lying positions by fitting a three-axis accelerometer on a halter on the middle occipital region. Mansbridge et al (2018) and Barwick et al (2018) classified the eating behaviors in sheep using a three-axis accelerometer worn on the ear.…”