Evaluating the Activity of Pigs with Radio-Frequency Identification and Virtual Walking Distances

SIMPLE SUMMARY: The greater the number of animals, the harder it becomes to monitor the health status of individual animals. The purpose of this study was to calculate a measure of activity for individual pigs in a fattening barn by using an automatic detection system. The results show changes in the activity data of group-housed pigs during fattening periods. We assume a high potential to use this automatically calculated activity measure for various purposes. ABSTRACT: Monitoring the activity of animals can help with assessing their health status. We monitored the walking activity of fattening pigs using a UHF-RFID system. Four hundred fattening pigs with UHF-RFID ear tags were recorded by RFID antennas at the troughs, playing devices and drinkers during the fattening period. A minimum walking distance, or virtual walking distance, was determined for each pig per day by calculating the distances between two consecutive reading areas. This automatically calculated value was used as an activity measure and not only showed differences between the pigs but also between different fattening stages. The longer the fattening periods lasted, the less walking activity was detected. The virtual walking distance ranged between 281 m on average in the first fattening stage and about 141 m in the last fattening stage in a restricted environment. The findings are similar to other studies considering walking distances of fattening pigs, but are far less labor-intensive and time-consuming than direct observations.