Modeling bovine lameness with limb movement variables

Abstract

Lameness detection is a world-wide challenge to farm- ers and veterinarians. Traditionally, one uses visual observation to make judgment on a cow's lameness or soundness. Visual observation heavily depends on the observer's experience, hence is subjective or ob- server-dependent. And even worse, it is inconsistent. It's reported that the agreement between veterinari- ans can be as low as 45% [1]. It is necessary and ur- gent to develop an objective detection method that can automatically detect lameness when it occurs. In this paper, we describe how statistical models can be used to develop such methods and how well the sta- tistical models perform.