Individual and autonomous walk-over weighing crate with concentrate feeder – Development and validation of an improved mobile weighing system for sheep

• Development of a mobile, energy self-sufficient autonomous weighing system for sheep successfully tested on pasture. • Individual weighing by WoW crate, utilizing light barriers, gates, and individual concentrate feed-based motivation. • High repeatability (SD = 0.40 kg; CV = 0.48 %) and accuracy (R 2 = 0.999; CCC = 0.999) of autonomous WoW crate demonstrated. • Autonomous in-crate weighing supported by robust fail-safe systems designed to guarantee animal safety. • Automatic data upload to a web-based database, with remote control via mobile internet connection. Continuous weight recording is an important method in animal husbandry to gain information about the animals’ body condition. Traditionally, monitoring the body weight of sheep has been a labour-intensive and time-consuming task, as the animals must be caught or restrained and weighed manually. As a result, regular weight monitoring is often neglected in sheep farming. This paper presents the development of a modified autonomous weighing system for sheep, which combines the principles of a walk-over weighing scale with a weighing crate. The aim of the project was to develop an efficient, precise and autonomous solution for weighing sheep without human intervention. The result is a mobile, energy self-sufficient prototype that enables autonomous and individual weight recording for sheep as they pass through the system. The walk-over weighing crate integrates light barriers and automatic pneumatic gates that control the flow of animals, allowing each sheep to be weighed separately on the weighing platform. To encourage voluntary entry, a concentrate feeder dispenses a small amount of feed as motivation. The electrical components and the air compressor are powered by batteries and solar panels to ensure autonomous operation. To evaluate repeatability and accuracy of the system, 40 sheep and 88 lambs were randomly selected over two years. The lambs were first weighed on a static reference weighing scale, and these measurements were compared with the automatically recorded weights obtained from the walk-over weighing crate (R 2 = 0.999; CCC = 0.999). For the evaluation of the repeatability of the weighing, the sheep passed through the walk-over weighing crate in 19 different weighing cycles. On average, a standard deviation (SD) of 0.40 kg and coefficient of variation (CV) of 0.48 % were achieved. The final test was conducted under real pasture conditions. After a short adaptation phase of six days, 32.5 % of the animals voluntarily used the system. The development of the autonomous walk-over weighing crate offers an efficient and precise solution for continuous, non-invasive and autonomous weight monitoring in sheep farming.