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Cameras: another option for pork producers’ technology tool kits

Cameras are all around us. Phones, iPads, computers, Ring doorbells, all have become a part of our everyday lives and it’s difficult to imagine life without them. One Iowa State University faculty member is looking at how cameras in hog barns can help producers recognize sickness and behavior changes.

Joshua Peschel, associate professor in agricultural and biosystems engineering, is conducting research on cyber-agricultural systems that could assist farmers. He said consistent, reliable, accurate, and cost-effective health and behavior understanding of pigs is one of the biggest challenges faced by the swine industry today.

“My research emerges from the critical need for new and innovative tools that expand precision livestock farming for production-scale swine operations,” he said. “My students and I create new technologies, data sets, and computational models for sensing and sensemaking. In other words, we come up with new data sets, using only video, to better manage pigs.”

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Measuring Methane Emissions From Cattle with Unique Technologies

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PhD Student Madison Kindberg, and Air Quality Specialist and Professor, Dr. Frank Mitloehner explain the unique Cattle Pen Enclosures and how they will capture emissions from cattle using state of the art technology. The enclosures are well equipped with one-way airflow fans, smart scales, and smart feeds that can tell you what an animal ate, when they ate and how much they ate. All enclosures are connected to one mobile air quality lab which uses gas monitors and analyzers to collect precision data. This data will be used to determine if an early-life methane reducing bolus can reduce emissions from cattle long-term.