Oestrus Detection in Dairy Cows Using Likelihood Ratio Tests

This paper addresses detection of oestrus in dairy cows using methods from statistical change detection. The activity of the cows was measured by a necklace attached sensor. Statistical properties of the activity measure were investigated. Using data sets from 17 cows, diurnal activity variations were identified for the ensemble and for the individual cows. A diurnal filter was adapted to remove the daily variation of the individual. Change detection algorithms were designed for the actual probability densities, which were Rayleigh distributed with individual parameters for each cow. A generalized likelihood ratio algorithm was derived for the compensated activity signal and detection algorithm was tested on 2323 days of activity, which contained 42 oestruses on 12 cows in total. The application of statistical change detection methods is a new approach for detecting oestrus in dairy cows and the results are shown to outperform earlier approaches in respect to combined statistics of false alarms and missed detections.