Automated Monitoring of Foraging Behaviour in Free Ranging Sheep Grazing a Bio-diverse Pasture using Audio and Video Information

Non-invasive methods for monitoring foraging choice in free ranging grazing animals are largely limited to accelerometers and video calibration. Acoustic data from a wireless microphone attached to the skull has been used to distinguish between resting and feeding bouts in free ranging cattle, sheep and goats. Similar data has been reported in restrained sheep presented with forage of differing dry matter content. We take these approaches further by using a small video camera attached to a halter in free range sheep, and software developed specifically for the analysis of animal sounds. Combined biting and mastication sounds allowed us to distinguish between foraged grasses and browsing activity, and non-foraging chewing activity in four sheep of differing body size and breed in the height of a UK summer for up to 8 hours.