Experimental stables

Experimental stables with opportunities for co-creative research in dairy cattle, poultry, rabbits and pig farming. These facilities are equipped with an extensive array of sensors and cutting-edge technologies to support advanced agricultural testing, experimenting and validation.

Pig Farming

  • The modern Pig Campus (research and educational pig stable of ILVO, Ghent University, and HOGENT) has space for 105 sows, 576 piglets, and 768 fattening pigs
  • ILVO’s experimental farm with space for 140 sows, 576 piglets, and 180 fattening pigs
  • Precision livestock farm with space for 120 fattening pigs
  • Low-ammonia emission systems with sloping pit walls and an air scrubber
  • Multiple water and feed circuits
  • Various scales/measuring equipment for individual and group weighing of pigs
pig Pig Tracking

Dairy Cattle

  • Modern experimental dairy barn (built in 2014) with space for 140 lactating cows, calves and heifers.
  • 74 RIC feeders for registration of individual feed uptake.
  • 6 rooms to measure gas exchange and 2 Greenfeed devices to study (greenhouse) gas emissions (methane, nitrous oxide, CO2, and ammonia).
  • Mobile Greenfeeds for emissions research at pasture.
  • Devices in the barn to measure ammonia emissions under natural ventilation.
  • Research barn to measure ammonia emissions under conditions with straw bedding.
Melkvee in de ILVO stal Livestock monitoring clawcare Clawcare

Poultry and Rabbits

  • Several houses for broiler chicks, with enough room for a total of 7,200 broiler chicks.
  • Laying hen house with room for approximately 1,100 layers (in enriched cages).
  • A broiler house that can be adapted to house 720 turkeys.
  • 2 mobile chicken houses large enough for 220 (organic) layers or (organic) broilers.
  • 120 units for digestion studies
  • Group housing for rabbits: 112 does and weaner kits
  • On-site feed mill to manufacture trial feeds (including pelleting
Een groep jonge, gele kuikens zitten op strooisel dichtbij de voederbak van een professionele pluimveestal

Digital Infrastructure

Datasets

  • Thermal camera: Thermal and RGB image datasets labelled with segmentations
  • Gaitwise: Data collected from a sensor mat for collecting the gait of lame and non-lame cows
  • PigWise: Dat collected with an IT based tool that can be used to monitor performance, growth and welfare of pigs at the individual level
  • Security camera: RGB images collected in pens, stables and pastures.
  • Behavioural datasets: Pigs, sow and piglets

AI models

  • Dairy cow Claw detection models
  • Callte and Pig detection and segmentation models
  • Cattle, Pig, sow and piglet behavior classification models.