An initial study on the use of machine learning and radio frequency identification data for predicting health outcomes in free-range laying hens

Title
An initial study on the use of machine learning and radio frequency identification data for predicting health outcomes in free-range laying hens
Publication Date
2023-03-30
Author(s)
Welch, Mitchell
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4220-8734
Email: mwelch8@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:mwelch8
Sibanda, Terence Zimazile
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0056-8419
Email: tsiband2@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:tsiband2
De Souza Vilela, Jessica
Kolakshyapati, Manisha
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5999-0374
Email: mkolaks2@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:mkolaks2
Schneider, Derek
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1897-4175
Email: dschnei5@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:dschnei5
Ruhnke, Isabelle
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5423-9306
Email: iruhnke@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:iruhnke
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
MDPI AG
Place of publication
Switzerland
DOI
10.3390/ani13071202
UNE publication id
une:1959.11/56458
Abstract

Maintaining the health and welfare of laying hens is key to achieving peak productivity and has become significant for assuring consumer confidence in the industry. Free-range egg production systems represent diverse environments, with a range of challenges that undermine flock performance not experienced in more conventional production systems. These challenges can include increased exposure to parasites and bacterial or viral infection, along with injuries and plumage damage resulting from increased freedom of movement and interaction with flock-mates. The ability to forecast the incidence of these health challenges across the production lifecycle for individual laying hens could result in an opportunity to make significant economic savings. By delivering the opportunity to reduce mortality rates and increase egg laying rates, the implementation of flock monitoring systems can be a viable solution. This study investigates the use of Radio Frequency Identification technologies (RFID) and machine learning to identify production system usage patterns and to forecast the health status for individual hens. Analysis of the underpinning data is presented that focuses on identifying correlations and structure that are significant for explaining the performance of predictive models that are trained on these challenging, highly unbalanced, datasets. A machine learning workflow was developed that incorporates data resampling to overcome the dataset imbalance and the identification/refinement of important data features. The results demonstrate promising performance, with an average 28% of Spotty Liver Disease, 33% round worm, and 33% of tape worm infections correctly predicted at the end of production. The analysis showed that monitoring hens during the early stages of egg production shows similar performance to models trained with data obtained at later periods of egg production. Future work could improve on these initial predictions by incorporating additional data streams to create a more complete view of flock health.

Link
Citation
Animals, 13(7), p. 1-18
ISSN
2076-2615
Start page
1
End page
18
Rights
Attribution 4.0 International

Files:

NameSizeformatDescriptionLink
openpublished/AnInitialWelchSibandaDeSouzaVilelaKolakshyapatiSchneiderRunhnke2023JournalArticle.pdf 1980.311 KB application/pdf Published Version View document