A review of livestock monitoring and the need for integrated systems

Developments in sensor technology which have taken place, and which are in progress or can be foreseen, will make available increasing amounts of information relevant to monitoring animals and their environment, and hence their production, growth and health. Systems are already available for identifying and weighing animals and it is reasonable to expect that systems will become available for tracking animals; for monitoring basic physiological factors such as body temperature and heart rate; and for assessing body conformation, and some limited aspects of composition. The application of integrated monitoring system techniques, in which information from sensors, databases, mathematical models and knowledge bases are combined and interpreted, will enable the maximum potential of this information to be realised. Several systems containing some of the elements of an integrated monitoring system are already available commercially for pig, broiler and milk production. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.