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 Konijnen in een pvc buis

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.