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The need to improve the sustainability of intensive livestock farming has led to an increasing adoption of Building Energy Simulation (BES) models for livestock houses. However, a consolidated body of knowledge specifically dedicated to these models is lacking in literature. This gap represents a significant obstacle to their widespread application and scalability in research and industry. The aim of this work is to pave the way for scaling the adoption of BES models for livestock houses by providing a comprehensive analysis of their application, development, and validation. For this aim, a systematic review of 42 papers—selected from over 795 results from the initial database query—is carried out. The findings underscored a growing body of research that involves BES models for different purposes. However, a common approach in both model development and validation is still lacking. This issue could hinder their scalability as a standard practice, especially in industry, also considering the limitations of BES models highlighted in this work. This review could represent a solid background for future research since provides an up-to-date framework on BES models for livestock houses and identifies future research opportunities. Moreover, it contributes to increasing the reliability of BES models for livestock houses by providing some recommendations for their validation.

Ammonia emissions from the agricultural sector give rise to numerous environmental and societal concerns and represent an economic challenge in crop farming, causing a loss of fertilizer nitrogen. Ammonia emissions from agriculture originate from manure slurry (livestock housing, storage, and fertilization of fields) as well as urea-based mineral fertilizers. Consequently, political attention has been given to ammonia volatilization, and regulations of ammonia emissions have been implemented in several countries. The molecular cause of the emission is the enzyme urease, which catalyzes the hydrolysis of urea to ammonia and carbonic acid. Urease is present in many different organisms, encompassing bacteria, fungi, and plants. In agriculture, microorganisms found in animal fecal matter and soil are responsible for urea hydrolysis. One strategy to reduce ammonia emissions is the application of urease inhibitors as additives to urea-based synthetic fertilizers and manure slurry to block the formation of ammonia. However, treatment of the manure slurry with urease inhibitors is associated with increased livestock production costs and has not yet been commercialized. Thus, development of novel, environmentally friendly and cost-effective technologies for ammonia emission mitigation is important. This mini-review describes the challenges associated with the volatilization of ammonia in agriculture and provides an overview of the molecular processes of urea hydrolysis and ammonia emissions. Different technologies and strategies to reduce ammonia emissions are described with a special focus on the use of urease inhibitors. The mechanisms of action and efficiency of the most important urease inhibitors in relation to agriculture will be briefly discussed.

Large-scale phenotyping of animal behaviour traits is time consuming and has led to increased demand for technologies that can automate these procedures. Automated tracking of animals has been successful in controlled laboratory settings, but recording from animals in large groups in highly variable farm settings presents challenges. The aim of this review is to provide a systematic overview of the advances that have occurred in automated, high throughput image detection of farm animal behavioural traits with welfare and production implications. Peer-reviewed publications written in English were reviewed systematically following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. After identification, screening, and assessment for eligibility, 108 publications met these specifications and were included for qualitative synthesis. Data collected from the papers included camera specifications, housing conditions, group size, algorithm details, procedures, and results. Most studies utilized standard digital colour video cameras for data collection, with increasing use of 3D cameras in papers published after 2013. Papers including pigs (across production stages) were the most common (n = 63). The most common behaviours recorded included activity level, area occupancy, aggression, gait scores, resource use, and posture. Our review revealed many overlaps in methods applied to analysing behaviour, and most studies started from scratch instead of building upon previous work. Training and validation sample sizes were generally small (mean±s.d. groups = 3.8±5.8) and in data collection and testing took place in relatively controlled environments. To advance our ability to automatically phenotype behaviour, future research should build upon existing knowledge and validate technology under commercial settings and publications should explicitly describe recording conditions in detail to allow studies to be reproduced.

Early-life microbial exposure is of particular importance to growth, immune system development and long-lasting health. Hence, early microbiota composition is a promising predictive biomarker for health and disease but still remains poorly characterized in regards to susceptibility to diarrhoea. In the present study, we aimed to assess if gut bacterial community diversity and composition during the suckling period were associated with differences in susceptibility of pigs to post-weaning diarrhoea. Twenty piglets from 5 sows (4 piglets / litter) were weaned in poor housing conditions to challenge their susceptibility to post-weaning diarrhoea. Two weeks after weaning, 13 pigs exhibited liquid faeces during 2 or 3 days and were defined as diarrhoeic (D) pigs. The other 7 pigs did not have diarrhea during the whole post-weaning experimental periodand were defined as healthy (H) pigs. Using a molecular characterisation of fecal microbiota with CE-SSCP fingerprint, Next Generation Sequencing and qPCR, we show that D and H pigs were mainly discriminated as early as postnatal day (PND) 7, i.e. 4 weeks before post-weaning diarrhoea occurence. At PND 7 H pigs displayed a lower evenness and a higher abundance of Prevotellaceae, Lachnospiraceae, Ruminocacaceae and Lactobacillaceae compared to D pigs. The sPLS regression method indicates that these bacterial families were strongly correlated to a higher Bacteroidetes abundance observed in PND 30 H pigs one week before diarrhoea. These results emphasize the potential of early microbiota diversity and composition as being an indicator of susceptibility to post-weaning diarrhoea. Furthermore, they support the health promoting strategies of pig herds through gut microbiota engineering.

Feet and leg/locomotor issues represent a primary reason for sow removal from U.S. breeding herds. A shift from gestation stalls (GS) to group-sow housing (GSH) is occurring the U.S. swine industry, emphasizing the importance of structural soundness in replacement gilts. The objectives of this study were 1) to determine if feet and leg/body conformation score differences exist when evaluated at approximately 50 kgs. and 100 kgs.; 2) estimate subjectively scored feet and leg/body conformation trait repeatability within and across measurement time and scorer(s); and 3) determine if the ideal feet and leg conformation traits and scores within traits are the same within GS and GSH. A total of 4494 gilts were evaluated at approximately 22 weeks of age at 3 different farms within the same production system by 4 scorers, representing varying levels of experience. The conformation traits evaluated included locomotion score (LS), front and rear leg conformation (FLC and RLC), front and rear pastern angle (FP and RP), front and rear foot position (FFP and RFP), rib shape (RS), foot size (FS) and toe size (TS). Across farms, the mean gilt BW was 83 ± 11.5 kg. Across scorers and the entire gilt population, the mean conformation scores were: LS (0.06 ± 0.16), FLC (6.1 ± 0.54), RLC (5.4 ± 0.40), FP (3.6 ± 0.62), RP (4.0 ± 0.64), FFP (4.4 ± 0.31), RFP (4.1 ± 0.30), RS (4.3 ± 0.72), FS (2.0 ± 0.35) and TS (4.8 ± 0.61). The entire gilt population was divided amongst four individual sow herds (2 GS and 2 GSH). Sow performance will be followed for three parities to determine the relationship between production and longevity within gestation housing systems and determine if the relationships are associated with one or more conformation traits and/or differences in scores within each conformation trait.

Methane (CH 4 ) emission from pig slurry is a large contributor to the climate footprint of livestock production. Acidification of excreta from livestock animals with sulfuric acid, reduce CH 4 emission and is practiced at many Danish farms. Possible interaction effects with other acidic agents or management practices (e.g. frequent slurry removal and residual slurry acidification) have not been fully investigated. Here we assessed the effect of pig slurry acidification with a range of organic and inorganic acids with respect to their CH 4 inhibitor potential in several batch experiments (BS). After careful selection of promising CH 4 inhibitors, three continuous headspace experiments (CHS) were carried out to simulate management of manure in pig houses. In BS experiments, more than <99% CH 4 reduction was observed with HNO 3 treatment to pH 5.5. Treatments with HNO 3 , H 2 SO 4 , and H 3 PO 4 reduced CH 4 production more than acetic acid and other organic acids when acidified to the same initial pH of 5.5. Synergistic effects were not observed when mixing inorganic and organic acids as otherwise proposed in the literature, which was attributed to the high amount of acetic acid in the slurry to start with. In the CHS experiments, HNO 3 treatment reduced CH 4 more than H 2 SO 4 , but increased nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emission, particularly when the acidification target pH was above 6, suggesting considerable denitrification activity. Due to increased N 2 O emission from HNO 3 treatments, HNO 3 reduced total CO 2 -eq by 67%, whereas H 2 SO 4 reduced CO 2 -eq by 91.5% compared to untreated slurry. In experiments with daily slurry addition, weekly slurry removal, and residual acidification, HNO 3 and H 2 SO 4 treatments reduced CO 2 -eq by 27% and 48%, respectively (not significant). More cycles of residual acidification are recommended in future research. The study provides solid evidence that HNO 3 treatment is not suitable for reducing CO 2 -eq and H 2 SO 4 should be the preferred acidic agent for slurry acidification.

This study designed a message queuing telemetry transport (MQTT)-based communication framework to acquire environmental data with stable, low-latency response (soft real-time capability) and detect anomalies in smart livestock housing. We validated the performance of the proposed framework using actual sensor data. It comprises environmental sensor nodes, a Mosquitto MQTT broker, and a GRU-based anomaly detection model, with data transmission via a WiFi-based network. Comparing quality of service (QoS) levels, the QoS 1 configuration demonstrated the most stable performance, with an average latency of ~150 ms, a data collection rate ≥ 99%, and a packet loss rate ≤ 0.5%. In the sensor node expansion experiment, responsiveness (≤200 ms) persisted for 10–15 nodes, whereas latency increased to 238.7 ms for 20 or more nodes. The GRU model proved suitable for low-latency analysis, achieving 97.5% accuracy, an F1-score of 0.972, and 18.5 ms/sample inference latency. In the integrated experiment, we recorded an average end-to-end latency of 185.4 ms, a data retention rate of 98.9%, processing throughput of 5.39 samples/s, and system uptime of 99.6%. These findings demonstrate that combining QoS 1-based lightweight MQTT communication with the GRU model ensures stable system response and low-latency operation (soft real-time capability) in monitoring livestock housing environments, achieving an average end-to-end latency of 185.4 ms.

In recent years, intensive pig husbandry has been subject to increasing public criticism, including a clear demand for more animal-friendly housing systems in many countries. However, such systems are associated with trade-offs at the expense of other sustainability domains, which challenges implementation and makes prioritization necessary. Overall, research is scarce that systematically analyses citizens’ evaluation of different pig housing systems and associated trade-offs. Given the ongoing transformation process of future livestock systems that meet social demands, it is crucial to include public attitudes. We therefore assessed how citizens evaluate different pig housing systems and whether they are willing to compromise animal welfare in trade-off situations. We conducted an online survey with 1,038 German citizens using quota and split sampling in a picture-based survey design. Participants were asked to evaluate several housing systems with different animal welfare levels and associated trade-offs based on an either positive (‘free-range’ in split 1) or negative (‘indoor housing with fully slatted floors’ in split 2) reference system. Initial acceptability was highest for the ‘free-range’ system, followed by ‘indoor housing with straw bedding and outdoor access’, ‘indoor housing with straw bedding’, and ‘indoor housing with fully slatted floors’, with only the latter being clearly not acceptable for many. Overall acceptability was higher with a positive rather than a negative reference system. When confronted with several trade-off situations, participants became uncertain and temporarily adjusted their evaluations. Thereby participants were most likely to trade off housing conditions against animal or human health rather than against climate protection or a lower product price. Nevertheless, a final evaluation demonstrated that participants did not fundamentally change their initial attitudes. Our findings provide evidence that citizens’ desire for good housing conditions is relatively stable, but they are willing to compromise at the expense of animal welfare up to a moderate level.

Little is known about the impact of social and environmental enrichment on improving livestock resilience, i.e. the ability to quickly recover from perturbations. We evaluated the effect of an alternative housing system (AHS) on resilience of pigs, as compared to conventional housing (CONV). The AHS consisted of multi-litter housing during lactation, delayed weaning, extra space allowance and environmental enrichment at all times. We assessed recovery to a 2 h-transport challenge, an LPS injection, 2 h-heat stress and a biopsy wound in 96 pigs. Additionally, indicators of long-term “wear and tear” on the body were determined. AHS pigs had better physiological recoveries with quicker returns to baseline in the transport and LPS challenges, showed lower cortisol accumulation in hairs and lower variance in weight gain over the experimental period compared to conventionally-housed (CONV) pigs. They also had higher levels of natural antibodies binding KLH than CONV pigs. Their response to heat stress revealed a different strategy compared to CONV pigs. Taken together, AHS pigs appear to be more resilient and experience less chronic stress. Enhancing welfare by provision of social and environmental enrichment that better meets the behavioural needs of pigs seems to be a promising approach to improve their resilience.

Allowing dairy cattle to access pasture can promote natural behaviour and improve their health. However, the psychological benefits are poorly understood. We compared a cognitive indicator of emotion in cattle either with or without pasture access. In a crossover experiment, 29 Holstein–Friesian dairy cows had 18 days of overnight pasture access and 18 days of full-time indoor housing. To assess emotional wellbeing, we tested cows on a spatial judgement bias task. Subjects learnt to approach a rewarded bucket location, but not approach another, unrewarded bucket location. We then presented cows with three “probe” buckets intermediate between the trained locations. Approaching the probes reflected an expectation of reward under ambiguity—an “optimistic” judgement bias, suggesting positive emotional states. We analysed the data using linear mixed-effects models. There were no treatment differences in latency to approach the probe buckets, but cows approached the known rewarded bucket slower when they had pasture access than when they were indoors full-time. Our results indicate that, compared to cattle housed indoors, cattle with pasture access display less anticipatory behaviour towards a known reward. This reduced reward anticipation suggests that pasture is a more rewarding environment, which may induce more positive emotional states than full-time housing.