In precision livestock farming, monitoring animal activity is crucial to ensure their health, well-being, and productivity. While digital cameras and computer vision algorithms offer a promising solution for this task, tracking individual animals of similar appearance when housed in groups can be challenging. Close interaction among animals can lead to a loss of individual identity, which affects tracking accuracy. To overcome this problem, we developed a framework that combines camera images with radio frequency identification (RFID) ear tags. This methodology was applied to a pen housing 12 pigs, with an RFID reader located inside the feeder. Among the pigs, three had unique coat markings, enabling them to be tracked most of the time without losing their identity (87% of the time). The remaining pigs could not be visually distinguished from each other, so information from the RFID system was used to recover lost IDs every time pigs entered the feeder. The framework achieves 97% accuracy in tracking, offering a reliable solution for monitoring group-housed pigs.

Read the full article in the Journal of Animal Science.