h. ghasemzadeh

The livestock sector excels in the production of dairy and meat products. These products, serving as vital sources of animal protein, hold a significant position in household diets. The significance of these two products in the food basket has heightened awareness around animal health. Regularly tracking rumination time serves as a vital and insightful measure to obtain information about the rest and overall health of an animal. This information enables prompt intervention for health or nutritional issues, allowing for earlier management adjustments and veterinary care to effectively combat the onset of disease. In the past, rumination was usually monitored through visual observation by on-site staff or through videos recorded by cameras installed on the livestock. Nowadays, the growing scale of livestock farms makes it impractical to effectively monitor the animals individually. The traditional method of visual observation demands the continuous presence of livestock professionals and is extremely time-consuming. Currently, sensors and digital technologies have become important tools for accurate animal husbandry, enabling real-time monitoring of rumination. A review of the research in the field of precision animal husbandry shows that many efforts are being made to develop precision monitoring sensors to overcome the mentioned problems. Continuous and automatic monitoring of animal behavior through sensors can offer valuable insights into nutrition, reproduction, health, and overall well-being of dairy cows.

In this research, an accelerometer-based sensor was developed and used in the precision agriculture laboratory of Tabriz University, Iran. The sensor was installed in three different positions on the cow's body to collect data. Important factors were calculated from the raw data, and the modeling was done using the logistic regression method. The logistic regression model was trained to distinguish rumination from the other cow's behaviors. The developed model was evaluated using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, and three other evaluation criteria: precision, sensitivity, and F-score. Finally, the performance of the final model and sensor was evaluated in the field for a few days.

After calculating the evaluation criteria for different calculation factors, four optimal factors were finally selected from the 50 arrays. Muzzle mode was found to be the best place to install the sensor. Logistic regression was the best modeling method for binary classification between rumination and other behaviors. The evaluation criteria of the model in the proposed sensor are the highest, and the values of sensitivity 88%, accuracy 94%, and F-score 91% were obtained through logistic regression analysis. The final test results of the model revealed that the sensor demonstrated an impressive detection capability of 89.47%. Furthermore, the developed system exhibited strong alignment with the actual field observations, highlighting its effectiveness and reliability. Finally, the results of the current study were compared with other studies in the literature.

This study investigated recording and monitoring rumination behavior using an accelerometer, which can help prevent financial losses in cattle farms. After examining different mounting locations of the sensor, it was found that the muzzle position provided more accurate detections than the other mounting locations. The final model was created using the statistical factors and the calculation of the evaluation criteria. The results showed that the proposed model provided more correct diagnoses and achieved the optimal solution.AcknowledgmentWe would like to express our gratitude to the Khalat Poushan Cattle Farming Complex of the University of Tabriz, Iran, its professors and staff for supporting this project, and for their commitment to promote animal husbandry science.

When dairy cattle are subjected to heat stress, reproductive efficiency declines.To override the suppressive effects of heat stress various environmental and hormonal manipulations have been utilized. The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether the administration of GnRH and hCG on day 5 post-insemination would improve pregnancy rate in mild heat stressed dairy cattle (summer months). All cows were inseminated at estrus and then on days 5 after AI, they were alternately assigned into three groups: GnRH group(n=44)received an IM injection (5ml) of GnRH (GONAbreed®,PARNEL, Australia,) hCG group (n=44) received an IM injection (1ml) of hCG (Pregnyl®, Daru Pakhsh, Iran) and control group (n=36) which did not received any treatment.Pregnancy was diagnosed on day 32-39 after AI by ultrasonography.. The difference in CR among three groups were analyzed by using chi-square and fisher test. CR in GnRH, hCG and control groups were 54/5%, 61% and 58/3% respectively, that weren’t significant difference among three groups (P>0.05). CR within GnRH groups in ≤150 and>150 days open subgroups were 72%, 40% that is statistically significant (P<0.05) and also CR between GnRH and hCG groups based on Open days>15o was 40%, 76% that is statistically significant (P<0.05). CR within control and hCG groups among <3 and≥3number of AI were 80%, 31%, 77% and 39%respectively, that is statistically different(P<0.05). According to the results of this study, the use of hCG after AI in repeat breeder dairy cows in summer months is recommended.