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Towards Facial Expression Recognition for On-Farm Welfare Assessment in Pigs

Author

Listed:
  • Mark F. Hansen

    (Centre for Machine Vision, BRL, UWE Bristol, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK)

  • Emma M. Baxter

    (Animal Behaviour and Welfare, Animal and Veterinary Sciences Research Group, SRUC, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG, UK)

  • Kenneth M. D. Rutherford

    (Animal Behaviour and Welfare, Animal and Veterinary Sciences Research Group, SRUC, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG, UK)

  • Agnieszka Futro

    (Animal Behaviour and Welfare, Animal and Veterinary Sciences Research Group, SRUC, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG, UK)

  • Melvyn L. Smith

    (Centre for Machine Vision, BRL, UWE Bristol, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK)

  • Lyndon N. Smith

    (Centre for Machine Vision, BRL, UWE Bristol, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK)

Abstract

Animal welfare is not only an ethically important consideration in good animal husbandry but can also have a significant effect on an animal’s productivity. The aim of this paper was to show that a reduction in animal welfare, in the form of increased stress, can be identified in pigs from frontal images of the animals. We trained a convolutional neural network (CNN) using a leave-one-out design and showed that it is able to discriminate between stressed and unstressed pigs with an accuracy of >90% in unseen animals. Grad-CAM was used to identify the animal regions used, and these supported those used in manual assessments such as the Pig Grimace Scale. This innovative work paves the way for further work examining both positive and negative welfare states with the aim of developing an automated system that can be used in precision livestock farming to improve animal welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark F. Hansen & Emma M. Baxter & Kenneth M. D. Rutherford & Agnieszka Futro & Melvyn L. Smith & Lyndon N. Smith, 2021. "Towards Facial Expression Recognition for On-Farm Welfare Assessment in Pigs," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-15, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jagris:v:11:y:2021:i:9:p:847-:d:629007
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    2. Daiana de Oliveira & Linda J Keeling, 2018. "Routine activities and emotion in the life of dairy cows: Integrating body language into an affective state framework," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(5), pages 1-16, May.
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