ACCED – Animal Centred Controlled Environment for Dairy

The proposed project, ACCED, focusses on assessing the feasibility of using real-time individual animal behaviour and responses to climatic conditions to be used with ventilation control systems to provide optimum conditions within a dairy system.

ACCED will use artificial intelligence to ascertain when an individual or group of cows are experiencing early signs of heat stress that can then be used with the ventilation control parameters to control devices that can optimise the environment to mitigate or reduce the long-term effects of heat stress. Heat stress on dairy cows directly affects the performance of the dairy cow in terms of fertility, lameness, mastitis, milk yields and in severe cases the longevity. Reducing the effects of heat stress can therefore increase productivity, profitability and sustainability of the farm and wider supply chain.

The project will assess the feasibility of the first animal-centred controlled environment to be used in housed dairy livestock buildings in the realisation of a proof of concept on a commercial dairy farm.