The research behind OpticFlock
All the research and development for OpticFlock has been carried out on commercial broiler farms and in collaboration with producers with the aim of finding out what would be most useful for farmers. The results are therefore directly relevant to today’s farming.
OpticFlock can recognise key welfare outcomes such as hockburn, foot pad dermatitis, mortality and walking ability (Dawkins et al., 2009, 2012; 2017) and it can detect welfare problems in birds as young as four days old (Roberts et al., 2012).
The key statistics it uses are the mean optical flow summed over a whole day, which shows the overall level of flock activity, and the kurtosis, a measure of the extent to which there is unusual or anomalous movement within a flock. In unhealthy flocks, active walking birds stand out as odd (Dawkins et al., 2013).
OpticFlock was also able to pick out flocks that would test positive for Campylobacter at 28 days and to do so when bird were less than a week old, far earlier than standard culture tests are able to do (Colles et al., 2016).
Preliminary work on pigs suggests that optical flow may also have some applications to welfare problems such as tail-biting (Larsen et al., 2020)
The bigger picture
OpticFlock is part of the rapidly developing field of SMART or ‘precision’ livestock in which technology is being increasingly used to monitor and control the lives of animals. This raises both opportunities for more efficient farming as well as concerns about the welfare of the animals themselves (Dawkins, 2016). Much will depend on the priority that is given to animal welfare in the farming of the future (Rowe and Dawkins 2019) and the extent to which animal welfare is seen as in line with or in conflict with human interests (Dawkins, 2012; 2019).
A key element in making sure that animal welfare standards are improved will be to use a definition of ‘welfare’ that allos us to decide what is best for animals, not just from a human perspective but from the point of view of the animals themselves. A definition that fits this requirement is that good welfare consists of ensuring (i) that animals are healthy and (ii) that they have what they want (Dawkins, 2008). This definition has the further advantages that it is easy for everyone - scientist and non-scientist alike - to understand and that it points clearly to the kind of evidence we need to collect if we are to ensure high standards of animal welfare in the farming of the future. The case for this definition and its power to show us the animals’ point of view is made in my new book The Science of Animal Welfare: Understanding What Animals Want, due out at the beginning of 2021.
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