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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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Episode 83: Improve Your Bottom Line with the Power of Feed Testing

Video: Episode 83: Improve Your Bottom Line with the Power of Feed Testing

Now that cattle feed has been—or is being—harvested, it’s a good time to start thinking about testing it. While a visual check can help you spot the difference between good and poor-quality feed, it won’t tell you much about energy or protein levels. Only a feed test can give you that information. In this episode, we’ll talk about why feed testing matters, how to do it properly, and how to make sense of the lab results.