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34
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Introduction
Post-doctoral researcher at the Animal Production Systems Group.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
June 2004 - February 2013
Publications
Publications (34)
Understanding behavioural dynamics in pigs is important to assess pig welfare in current intensive pig production systems. Agent-based modelling (ABM) is an approach to gain insight into behavioural dynamics in pigs, but its use in applied ethology and animal welfare science has been limited so far. We used ABM in a case study on tail biting behavi...
The interaction between hormonal circadian rhythms and feeding behaviour is not well understood. This study aimed to deepen our understanding of mechanisms underlying circadian feeding behaviour in animals, using pigs, Sus scrofa, as a case study. Pigs show an alternans feeding pattern, that is, a small peak of feed intake at the beginning of the d...
Animals living in groups compete for food resources and face food conflicts. These conflicts are affected by social factors (e.g. competition level) and behavioural strategies (e.g. avoidance). This study aimed to deepen our understanding of the complex interactions between social factors and behavioural strategies affecting feeding and social inte...
Feeding food losses and food waste (FLW) to livestock can reduce the environmental impact of livestock production, but practical implications for feed quality and feed production systems are currently unclear. The aim of this paper is to address the potential implications for pigs and poultry feeding systems when FLW would (fully or partly) replace...
Computer vision techniques are becoming increasingly popular for monitoring pig behavior. For instance, object detection models allow us to detect the presence of pigs, their location, and their posture. The performance of object detection models can be affected by variations in lighting conditions (e.g., intensity, spectrum, and uniformity). Furth...
The feeding behaviour of growing-finishing pigs is an important indicator of performance, health and welfare, but this use is limited by its large, poorly-understood variation. We explored the variation in basal feed intake of individual pigs by detecting circadian rhythms, extracting features of diurnal patterns and assessing consistency over time...
Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) is developing as a powerful on-farm tool to monitor animal welfare. ClearFarm aims to contribute to this by developing an algorithm that can assess animal welfare continuously, based on the five Welfare Domains. This study summarises the main achievements and barriers experienced in the development of the algorithm...
A brief journey of our achievements and barriers from the ClearFarm Work Package 2 (i.e., pig trials) when trying to aggregate animal welfare data collected from sensors and to construct platform algorithm.
The current food system is not sustainable. Circular agriculture aims to save the environment and produce food sustainably by closing nutrient cycles, possibly without improving animal welfare. This paper proposes a new conceptual framework, called a circular welfare economy (CWE), to facilitate a transition towards a sustainable agriculture based...
Automated body weight (BW) estimation can be a useful tool for continuous monitoring of growth in commercial pigs, whereas deviations could indicate welfare problems. We validated a depth camera for BW estimation in 251 conventional growing pigs on two farms. Scale-based BW of individual pigs was used as gold standard (Farm 1: 107 pigs, BW range: 1...
The use of food waste as animal feed could contribute to a more circular and sustainable food production. Feeding swill (consumption phase food waste) however, is historically associated with disease transmission to animals and humans. The aim of this paper is to review the microbial health hazards of feeding swill to farm animals, with a focus on...
The welfare of growing-finishing pigs is important inherently to the pigs, but also for the societal acceptance and environmental impact of the husbandry system. Nevertheless, methods to monitor pig welfare throughout the whole growing-finishing phase have not yet been successfully developed. One possibility is to use electronic feeding stations to...
Several precision livestock farming (PLF) technologies, conceived for optimizing farming processes, are developed to detect the physical and behavioral changes of animals continuously and in real-time. The aim of this review was to explore the capacity of existing PLF technologies to contribute to the assessment of pig welfare. In a web search for...
Domesticated pigs, Sus scrofa, vary considerably in feeding, social interaction and growth patterns. This variation originates partly from genetic variation that affects physiological factors and partly from behavioural strategies (avoid or approach) in competitive food resource situations. Currently, it is unknown how variation in physiological fa...
A study with computer simulation to increase understanding of feeding and conflict behaviour (avoidance and displacement) of growing pigs and the indicative value of feeding patterns for understanding animal welfare.
The transition towards sustainable pig production systems is receiving increasing attention nowadays. Pig behaviour plays a central role in sustainability, as it is an important indicator for pig welfare and can also affect other sustainability issues. Understanding behaviour and related welfare consequences requires to understand motivations under...
The everyday life of people working in organizations requires con-tinuous coordination. In fact, coordination is what organizations are for. Yet people do not stick to what the organization prescribes for them to do. Human coordination is rife with issues of group affiliation, power, and leadership, and associated emotions. The fields of organizati...
More effort should be put into reducing severe pain and distress in animal experiments by applying more-humane endpoints
Veehouders weten goed welke maatregelen er zijn tegen kalverdiarree, maar passen ze in de praktijk vaak niet toe. ‘Geen noodzaak’, ‘te weinig tijd’ of ‘te onpraktisch voor de eigen situatie’ zijn veelgehoorde argumenten om geen actie te ondernemen.
Een rapport over de ontwikkelingen in en rondom het proefdiergebruik en alternatieven voor dierproeven. In opdracht van de Sophia Vereeniging ter Bescherming van Dieren. Nationaal Centrum
