Lameness remains a costly problem in Irish dairy herds, largely because most farmers only notice a lame cow when she is visibly limping, by which time conditions such as Mortellaro, white line disease or ulcers have advanced. Regular locomotion scoring helps, but few farmers do it.

A system developed by Censortec aims to do the scoring automatically. 3D cameras mounted over the parlour exit race or a drafting gate scan several points on each cow's back as she walks underneath, identified by her electronic ear tag, and an AI algorithm turns the images into a locomotion score.

Instead of the familiar 0-4 scale, the system scores from 1, severely lame, to 100, and alerts the farmer when a cow falls below a set threshold or, more importantly, declines rapidly. That lets affected cows be drafted early, kept close to the parlour with enough feed space and have their hooves trimmed before serious damage, protecting milk yield and treatment costs.

Photo: Keith Weller, USDA / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

Source: Agriland