Surveillance camera

livestockfor weight recording

Until now, it was impossible to monitor the gain of weaners and finishers in traditional production systems. Manual weighing is time-consuming and hard work. On top of that, it is stressful for the pigs and the quality of the data is insufficient. Thus, pig producers require automated weighings and monitoring of the performance. The ProGrow concept, including camera weighing, meet the pig producers’ requirements. How does it work? The camera weighing system consists of a camera installed above the pen, a computer that transforms the images into weight data and a FarmOnline module. FarmOnline informs about daily gain, average weight and minimum and maximum weight of the pigs. From image to weight in three steps The system is set up with a number of hot spots in an area in front of the feed dispenser. When a pig enters this area, the system takes pictures of the pig. The top-surface area of the pig is measured and divided into front, centre and hind area. The system requires a certain correlation between the three areas to approve the image as a pig. If the correlation between the areas is incorrect, the system rejects the images. The top-surface area of the pig is directly correlated to the weight of the pig. The third and final step is calculating the weight of the pig by multiplying the top-surface area by a factor.