The Development of a Softseparatortm for Dairy Cattle that Is Examined for Lameness by an Automatic Lameness Detection System

To obtain bodyweight measurements of cattle, herdsmen have to walk the herd through a scale, one animal at a time. This practice imposes extra work on the animal caretakers. Pneumatically activated entrance and exit gates and a passive S shape gate that is operated by the animals are viable commercially available solutions with one drawback. Gates slow down the animal traffic and introduce extra work for the animal caretakers. This paper introduces a softseparatorTM technology that eliminates the need for gates by decomposing a limb-movement-variable record of multiple cows into multiple records of a single animal. This technology works with a recently developed Lameness Detection System that was introduced in the 2002 International Symposium on Lameness in Ruminants. This patent pending system is being commercialized by Bou-Matic, LLC. The softseparatorTM technology enables the herd to freely walk through the lameness detection system in groups, yet the system keeps records of each individual animal in a separate file ...