Detecting play behaviour in weaned dairy calves using accelerometer data

This research paper describes a validation study evaluating the ability of IceTag accelerometers (Peacock Technology, UK) to detect play behaviour in weaned dairy calves. Play behaviour is commonly observed in young animals and is regarded as an indicator of positive welfare states. Eight Holstein Friesian calves aged three to five months old were monitored using leg-mounted accelerometers for 48 hours; data generated by accelerometers to quantify calf activity included step count, lying times and a proprietary measure of overall activity termed “motion index” (MI). Calf behaviour was filmed continuously over the same 48-hour period using closed circuit television cameras and analysed using one-zero sampling to identify the presence (1) or absence (0) of play within each 15-minute time period. A positive correlation between MI and visually recorded play was found. Visual observations were compared with accelerometer-generated data and analysed using 2 x 2 contingency tables and Classification and Regression Tree (CART) analysis. A MI value of ≥ 69 was established as the optimum threshold to detect play behaviour (sensitivity = 94.4%; specificity = 93.6%; balanced accuracy = 94.0%). The results of this study suggest that accelerometer-generated MI data have the potential to detect play behaviour in weaned dairy calves in a more time efficient manner than traditional visual observations.