Recognition and monitoring of the feeding behavior of dairy cows based on video and TCS-YOLO model

Animal feeding behavior is an important animal welfare evaluation index. For an automatic monitoring of dairy cow feeding behaviors based on the deep learning technology, this paper proposes a quantity model for the recognition of dairy cow feeding behaviors and head movements. This model can automatically identify the feeding, chewing, and grass-bending behaviors of multiple dairy cows and track and quantify the feeding process and head movement trajectory of dairy cows in real time. This paper proposes a Transformer-Convolution Block Attention Module-Squeeze and Excitation-You Only Look Once (TCS-YOLO) model, which is an improved deep learning model based on You Only Look Once v5 (YOLOv5). By adding the transformer, Convolution Block Attention Module (CBAM), and Squeeze and Excitation (SE) enhancement modules, the feature extraction ability of the YOLOv5 model and the detection accuracy of the model are improved. It is further combined with the Deep Sort algorithm to track the trajectory of the heads of dairy cows when feeding. A total of 10,288 images were extracted from the top-view and front-view videos during the feeding process to construct a training set and a test set, and the TCS-YOLO model was tested and verified. The test results showed that the accuracy in detecting dairy cow feeding behaviors was 77.73% and 76.32%, the recall rate was 82.57% and 86.33%, and the mean average precision was 83.7% and 76.81%. Compared with the YOLOv5 model, the overall performance of the proposed model improved by 6–8%. It combined well with the Deep Sort target tracking algorithm, which could accurately track the feeding behaviors of dairy cows and suppress the change in their identity document. The research results can effectively solve the problems of poor recognition accuracy of feeding behaviors and insufficient feature extraction in complex breeding environments while providing an important reference guide for intelligent animal husbandry and precise breeding.