novel approaches to expression and detection of oestrus in dairy cows

failed to record cow interaction, but these events were in small proportion;
16.7% in POC 2 and 14.1% in POC 3.
Results differed when the automated script was applied to analyse the UWB
data (see Table 5.3 and 5.4). The matching rate between UWB declared
mounts and visually observed mounts was determined by the optimised
script; 76.4% in POC 2 and 67.4% in POC 3. Accuracy of the optimised
script was less good at detecting true mounts; 56.07% in POC 2 and
51.24% in POC 3. It was clear from the individual results presented in
Tables 5.3 and 5.4 that the total number of mounts declared by script
analysis exceeded the number of mounts that were observed visually. The
incidence of UWB error and mounts not declared by the script were low
when compared to the number of false mounts declared by the script,
indicating that specificity of the script for individual mounting and standing
events was poor. Approximately half of all actual mounts were detected. In
an attempt to increase the accuracy of detection and specificity of the
script ‘tight limits’ were used to analyse UWB data. Here the script
accuracy decreased for POC 2, 54.8%, and increased slightly for POC 3,
52.2%. Matching rate however decreased dramatically to 55.7% for POC 2
and 41.9% for POC 3, which was as expected. However, without
improvements to the script accuracy this approach did not benefit accurate
oestrous detection.
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