Telemetric measurement and monitoring of animal welfare parameters and its importance for precision livestock farming

The storage telemetry system (ETHOSYS(R)) is able to record automatically different patterns of behaviour such as activity and grazing over complete years. Collars with sensors and electronic devices identify the different behaviours based on advanced analysis of sensor-emitted signals. The resulting time series are stored in the internal memory. These time series can be transmitted on command by radio to a PC. The data can be downloaded at intervals like days or weeks at distances of up to 200m. Chronobiological procedures have been developed for analysing the resulting time series for deviations of level and rhythmic structure. Different kinds of disturbance, transportation stress, introduction into a new herd, wounds, high parasite load, or social stress could be identified by these methods. It was also possible to determine the time of lambing in free ranging mouflon sheep. The system is especially convenient for free grazing animals or animals in large groups as in loose housing systems.