A Gigacow example, weather data in longitudinal studies on heat stress

Abstract

Large and varied datasets from modern precision livestock farming equipment can be used to tackle increasingly complex research questions such as defining a phenotype of heat stress resistance in dairy cattle milk production. Heat stress causes drops in production and changes in behavior that are difficult to detect unless the cow in question is monitored over longer periods and more variable conditions than conventional experimental designs may allow. We present here how the SLU Infrastructure for dairy data collection, Gigacow support complex data-driven dairy research using heat stress as a case study. SLU Gigacow gathers daily data updates from a set of Swedish commercial dairy farms with a digital farm management system (FMS) overseeing either a robot milking system or milking parlor, and links the data per-cow to individual 50k SNP genotypes and national animal database information including trade history, pedigree and health events. The way SLU Gigacow support the project From Sensitive to Robust Athlete – Exploring the Opportunities of Genomic Selection to Help Dairy Cows Cope With Increasing Temperatures provides a good case study on how the data and knowledge generated by:

• Validating an external dataset from the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute.

• Collecting daily milking data from farms over multiple lactations.

• Providing cost coverage to Gigacow farms for genome analysis services and collect genetic data generated from the genome analysis in collaboration with Växa Sverige and Nordic Cattle Genetic Evaluation.

• Continuously evaluating, and including new data analysis models to support researchers and ensure that lessons learned in different projects can be included in new studies.

The collection of high quality longitudinal datasets was a key motivation for the establishment of SLU Gigacow and the infrastructure actively tries to prioritise data collection efforts to support future research and industry needs.

Keywords

data collection; infrastructure; heat stress

Published in

ICAR Technical Series
2024, number: 28, pages: 381-383
Title: Sustainable livestock production systems in a new era : Proceedings of the 47th ICAR Annual Conference held in Bled, Slovenia 19 -24 May 2024
Publisher: ICAR

Conference

Sustainable livestock production systems in a new era. 47th ICAR annual conference, Bled, Slovenia 19-24 May 2024

SLU Authors

• Klingström, Tomas

  • Department of Animal Biosciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Ohlsson, Jan Ingemar

  • Department of Animal Biosciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Ask Gullstrand, Patricia

  • Department of Animal Biosciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Tamminen, Lena-Mari

  • Department of Clinical Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• de Koning, Dirk-Jan

  • Department of Animal Biosciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Animal and Dairy Science

Publication identifier

• ISBN: 978-92-95014-24-4

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/140952