Chickens on Camera: Op1cal Flow and the Stas1cs of Welfare Marian Stamp Dawkins! Department of Zoology! University of Oxford Royal Society, July 2014 Climate change, feeding people and the future of agriculture “sustainably intensive” Is animal welfare being pushed off the poli1cal agenda? The Royal Society (2009) “Agriculture will need to produce more food from the same or less land, using less water, energy and other inputs and reducing waste and adverse environmental impacts including greenhouse gas emissions”. (2013) hp://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ •" Limi1ng land for livestock •" Greater efficiency •" Sustainable intensificaon •" More technology Where is animal welfare? Broiler (meat) chickens are already highly ‘efficient’ at conver1ng food to meat Broilers are kept in large sheds in flocks! of up to 70,000 birds! Globally, 60 billion chickens killed each year It takes only 35 days and 2.25 kg of food to grow a chicken to 1.5 kg (FCR of 1.5) This efficiency achieved by selec1ve breeding and diet Selec1on for fast growth rate has also led to welfare problems Lameness in is scored from 0= best to 5=worst Bristol gait score 4 (0=best; 5= worst) From Knowles, T.G. et al (2008) PLoS ONE 3(2) e1545 From:T.G. Knowles et al (2008) PLoS ONE 3(2): e1545. Current methods of assessing broiler welfare are mainly post-mortem GAIT SCORE PODODERMATITIS % MORTALITY HOCK BURN 1 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 AGE OF BIRDS (IN DAYS) We aim to assesses welfare throughout life and so an1cipate and intervene to achieve healthier flocks Our aim: efficiency and animal welfare •" Monitor welfare throughout life •" Help producers to manage their flocks for lower mortality, lower levels of disease, higher quality product •" Give early warning of health and welfare problems, enabling targeted interven1ons and reduced Our system uses smartphone cameras The smartphone delivers a welfare ‘verdict’ every 15 mins Op1cal flow: rate of change in image brightness Time Each (320 x 240) video frame is divided into (8X8) pixel squares. If there is no movement between frames, the brightness of all squares remains the same If movement occurs, there is a change from light to dark or vice versa. Op1cal flow compares the paerns of light and dark in successive images (a) Image frame at time t (b) Image frame at time t +1 Individual animals are not tracked, but the changing patterns over time (“flow”) give an indication of behaviour at flock level. Dawkins et al. (2009) Applied Animal Behaviour Science 119: 203-209 24 broiler flocks, each with 34,000 birds, iden1cal houses, one site, one manager Company On-site Optical flow measures measures from video Mortality Mean Hock burn Gait score Variance Podo- Skewness dermatitis Kurtosis Body wt. Lower welfare flocks had lower mean flow and more unusual movement (higher skew & kurtosis) Welfare Mean Variance Skewness Kurtosis Measures optical flow optical flow optical flow optical flow % flock -0.42* 0.003 0.42* 0.45* mortality % hock -0.36 0.09 0.57** 0.56** burn % podo 0.05 0.27 0.33 0.32 % poor -0.33 -0.27 0.42* 0.48* gaits The figures shown are correlaon coefficients; *=p<0.05, **=p<0.01 From Dawkins et al (2012) Animal Behaviouri Kurtosis is sensitive to the spread of extremes in the data Kurtosis Skew and kurtosis are measures of lack of uniformity in the movement In a race where all the compe1tors are equally fit, the ‘flow’ will have a high mean and low skew & kurtosis. Photo: I.dailymail.co.uk/prx In a race where there is a greater spread of abili1es, the ‘flow’ will have a lower mean and higher skew kurtosis Photo: 400mtogo.com The stas1cs of welfare • Poor welfare: lower mean movement but higher skew and kurtosis: slower and more variable • High welfare flocks: higher mean movement but lower skew and kurtosis: faster and more uniform The soqware can separate flocks with high final mortality from 15 days Kurtosis deviaon from mean It can also dis1nguish flocks with poor gaits Kurtosis deviaon from mean It can even predict hockburn in flocks as young as 3 days old PREDICTION OF HOCKBURN Correlation significant at p<0.01 Roberts, S.J., Cain, R. & Dawkins, M..S. (2012) Royal Society Journal Interface Where we are now • Commercial trials running in the UK, France and the US • Current research on op1cal flow in relaon to disease in the chicken flocks (Campylobacter, Clostridium, Salmonella, Coccidia) • Pressure from producers to be able to use the system for themselves The team…. Steve Roberts (Engineering Science, Oxford) Mar1n Maiden (Zoology, Oxford) Adrian Smith (Zoology, Oxford) Frances Colles (Zoology, Oxford) Russell Cain (Zoology, Oxford) Tom Nickson (Engineering Science, Oxford) Marian Dawkins (Zoology) Making animal welfare count • Integrate animal welfare with other concerns (food security, efficiency, disease reduc1on, environmental impact) • Help producers to find economic benefits for good animal welfare Precision farming with animal welfare .