Lameness Models That Use Transformations to Enhance Their Performance:: Theory and Field Testing

Lameness is an important welfare and costly production problem for the dairy industry. Losses due to lameness are caused by diminished milk yields, loss of reproductive efficiency and increased involuntary culling. These costs could be reduced with early detection and proper treatment of the ailment. StepMetrix, an automatic, early lameness detection system for dairy cattle has been developed for this purpose. The aim of this thesis was to improve the performance of the lameness prediction model currently used in the StepMetrix system. The testing results showed that lameness prediction models using B-Spline transformation can be used in combination with the current StepMetrix lameness prediction model to improve the model performance.