A Non-Invasive Continuous Respiration Rate Monitoring Device for Dairy Cattle Under Commercial Farm Conditions

Area of Science:

• Animal Physiology
• Agricultural Engineering
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Respiration rate (RR) is crucial for assessing dairy cattle health, stress, and thermoregulation.
• Continuous RR monitoring in commercial farms presents significant challenges.
• Existing methods for RR monitoring are often invasive or impractical for long-term use.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a non-invasive, clip-on nose ring device for continuous acoustic respiration rate monitoring in dairy cattle.
• To assess the accuracy and feasibility of the device for multi-day, within-animal RR assessment under commercial farm conditions.

Main Methods:

• A clip-on nose ring device with a MEMS microphone was designed for acoustic recording at the nostril.
• The device was deployed on five dairy cows in a commercial barn for multi-day recordings.
• Respiration rate was extracted using a signal-processing pipeline based on multiscale periodicity detection.
• Algorithm-derived RR was validated against manually annotated breath events.

Main Results:

• The algorithm achieved high accuracy with a mean absolute error of 1.47 bpm and root mean square error of 1.92 bpm.
• A strong correlation (r = 0.98, R ² = 0.96) was observed between algorithm-derived RR and reference values.
• Stable multi-day monitoring revealed clear diurnal respiration patterns without baseline drift.

Conclusions:

• The audio-based nose ring device is feasible for continuous, long-term respiration monitoring in dairy cattle.
• This technology provides a practical foundation for longitudinal RR assessment in commercial farm settings.
• Further validation in extreme environments and larger cohorts is recommended for population-level assessment.