Patent ID: 9198400
Filing Date: 2015-12-01
Classification: A01K

Abstract:
1. An animal behaviour determining system comprising: a real time location system (RTLS) in three dimensions within a monitoring zone for individually identifying and tracking the location of a plurality of tagged animals; a tag for securing to each animal; a computer; a computer database accessible to the computer and to the RTLS, the computer database including a three-dimensional computer model of the monitoring zone and a plurality of substantially horizontal datum lines at different predetermined heights in the computer model of the monitoring zone; a computer program accessible to the computer, the computer program being executable by the computer to discriminate between different behavioural activities of the tagged animals based upon the identified three-dimensional location of each animal's tag within the monitoring zone; and a graphical user interface; wherein the computer program is operable by the computer to discriminate between different behavioural activities of each tagged animal based upon both (i) the identified three-dimensional locations of respective tags of first and second tagged animals within the monitoring zone as determined by the RTLS compared with the predetermined heights of the plurality of substantially horizontal datum lines and (ii) the identified three-dimensional location of the tag of the first tagged animal as defined by the RTLS within the monitoring zone compared with the identified three-dimensional location of the tag of the second tagged animal as defined by the RTLS within the monitoring zone; and wherein the computer program is operable by the computer to discriminate between two or more different behavioural activities chosen from (i) the first tagged animal mounting the second tagged animal, in which the tag of the first tagged animal is above a first of the datum lines and the tag of the second tagged animal is below the first datum line, (ii) the first tagged animal feeding, in which the tag of the first tagged animal is below a second of the datum lines, and (iii) the first tagged animal lying down, in which the tag of the first tagged animal is below a third of the datum lines, and wherein the various behavioural activities detected by the discriminating means are logged by the computer for presentation to an operator upon demand; and wherein the graphical user interface is operable to display results of the animal behaviour determining system.