The effectiveness of boluses and collars with accelerometers in monitoring the motor activity of dairy cows

Abstract

In modern precision animal husbandry systems, wearable and implantable devices with accelerometers are actively used to monitor the health and productivity of livestock. In this study, a comparative evaluation of two devices was performed — the SCR Heatime collar (Allflex Livestock Intelligence, Israel) and a rumen bolus “Cow Health” (Federal Scientific Agroengineering Center VIM, Russia) — to classify activity and chewing in dairy cows. The experiment was conducted on the basis of a farm of the Kuban State Agrarian University with the participation of Holstein cows for 90 days. The devices recorded data with a frequency of 10 Hz, which was further analyzed using machine learning algorithms to identify key behavioral patterns: feeding, chewing, walking, and resting. The results showed that collars demonstrated higher accuracy (94.2%) in detecting feeding and walking, while boluses surpassed them in monitoring chewing gum (97.8%). The combined use of both devices made it possible to achieve the maximum overall accuracy of behavior classification — 98.1%. Additionally, the effectiveness of the systems in detecting sexual hunting was investigated: the combined use of collars and boluses increased detection accuracy by 12% compared with separate use. The findings highlight the complementary role of wearable and implantable sensors in digital animal husbandry. The combination of technologies not only improves the monitoring of the physiological state of cows, but also opens up prospects for the creation of digital animal twins, which helps optimize herd management and increase the economic efficiency of dairy farms.