Our Guidelines
Guidelines to ensure cow welfare have been produced for each of the topics covered in the project. Advice and good practices concerning lameness, mastitis problems, negative energy balance and stress in the herd are available below.
In the highly competitive NWE dairy sector (60% of EU milk), animal welfare is an increasing concern for both consumers and authorities and is a cause of economic losses. In this framework, HappyMoo aims at providing dairy farmers, vets and extension workers a tool to monitor cows' welfare and in particular the freedom from disease, hunger and stress. To achieve this, milk recording organizations (8), one IT-company, one pilot lab and research centres (3) are partners to build and design this tool, providing amounts of data and processing them via different statistical approaches. In particular, the possibility to use the mid-infrared spectrum of the milk to predict an impairment in those 3 freedoms will be investigated.
project co-financed by Région Wallonne
The project decided to focus of 4 sub-topics to assess the absence of disease, hunger and stress:
These are major welfare issues in dairy farming, causing pain to the animals and economic losses. Mastitis coordinator: Laura Dale (LKV-BW, LDale@lkvbw.de); lameness coordinator: Marie-Nguyet Tran (Elevéo, mntran@awegroupe.be)
At the beginning of lactation, negative energy balance and ketosis risk are common, as cows have to cope with the lactation peak. Coordinators: Marion Calmels (Seenovia, marion.calmels@seenovia.fr) and Valérie Wolf (CEL25-90, Valerie.Wolf@synergie-est.fr)
Dairy cows can live under stressful conditions and some cows are not able to cope. This can further lead to diseases. Coordinators: Virginie Vanden Dries (CRAW, v.vandendries@cra.wallonie.be) and Clément Grelet (CRAW, c.grelet@cra.wallonie.be)
To get all the latest updates on the project follow us on Twitter @HappyMooProject !
Follow us !42 Rue de Châteaudun
Paris
75009
France
1-3 Heinrich-Baumann Str.
Stuttgart
70190
Germany
56 Chamerstrasse
Zug
6300
Switzerland
24 Chaussée de Namur
Gembloux
5030
Belgium
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Gembloux
5030
Belgium
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Ireland
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Lead partner
Organisation | Address | Website | |
---|---|---|---|
Elevéo by awé groupe |
4 Rue des Champs Elysées Ciney 5590 Belgium |
jleblois@awegroupe.be | www.awenet.be |
Name | Contact Name | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
France Conseil Elevage | Christophe Lecomte | christophe.lecomte@france-conseil-elevage.fr | France |
Regional association for performance testing in livestock breeding of Baden-Württemberg | Jürgen Bieger | jbieger@lkvbw.de | Germany |
Qualitas AG | Urs Schuler | Urs.Schuler@qualitasag.ch | Switzerland |
Centre wallon de Recherche agronomique | Frédéric Dehareng | f.dehareng@cra.wallonie.be | Belgium |
University of Liège - Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech | Nicolas Gengler | nicolas.gengler@ulg.ac.be | Belgium |
ESTEL Numérique | Jean-Pierre Allard | jp.allard@estel-numerique.com | France |
State Control Association of North Rhine-Westphalia | Peter Hoeckels | hoeckels@lkv-nrw.de | Germany |
CONVIS s.c. | Romain Reding | Romain.Reding@convis.lu | Luxembourg |
Institut de l'Elevage | Marie-Pierre Jacqueroud | Marie-Pierre.Jacqueroud@idele.fr | France |
Irish Cattle Breeding Federation Society Limited | Mike Lynch | mlynch@icbf.com | Ireland |
National Milk Records PLC | Martin Busfield | MartinB@NMR.co.uk | United Kingdom |
Guidelines to ensure cow welfare have been produced for each of the topics covered in the project. Advice and good practices concerning lameness, mastitis problems, negative energy balance and stress in the herd are available below.
LE DÉFICIT ÉNERGÉTIQUE CHEZ LA VACHE LAITIÈRE
Limiter ses conséquences grâce à une vigilance aux périodes clés !
LES BOITERIES : TOUT SAUF UNE FATALITÉ !
Des solutions à tous les niveaux
MAMMITES : PROBLÉMATIQUE SANITAIRE N°1 EN ÉLEVAGE LAITIER
Une gestion intégrée pour une amélioration durable
STRESS EN TROUPEAU LAITIER
Quels impacts et quelles solutions ?
NEGATIVE ENERGIEBILANZ BEI MILCHKÜHEN
Begrenzung der Folgen durch Wachsamkeit in wichtigen Phasen!
MASTITIS: DAS ZENTRALE GESUNDHEITSPROBLEM IN DER MILCHVIEHHALTUNG
Integriertes Management für eine nachhaltige Verbesserung
STRESS IN DER MILCHVIEHHERDE
Welche Auswirkungen hat er und welche Lösungen gibt es?
After 4 years of research, the HappyMoo project ended on December 24th 2022. A final meeting was held on November 28 and 29 in Cork at our Irish partner's place. This was the opportunity for each working group to present the work done and the objectives reached. Read More
The Dair'innov congress was held in Namur on April 27th and 29th. More than a 100 participants from all around Europe, Canada and the US came to hear about the latest innovations to benefit cow welfare and dairy farming sustainability Read More
The annual conference of the European Federation of Animal Science (EAAP conference) was held during the last week of August in Davos, Switzerland. Many sessions focussed on animal welfare, and the session 68 was co-organized by the HappyMoo project: “PLF MIR tools to monitor cows’ welfare in particular the freedom from disease, hunger and stress (in collaboration with HappyMoo project).” Read More
The project is now on Twitter! Follow us on @HappyMooProject Read More
The WP2 purpose is to work on a making-decision tool for farmers and advisors in order to improve the management of some animal welfare indicators as lameness, mastitis, stress and energy balance. Read More
France Conseil Elevage (FCEL), one of the partners of the HappyMoo project, is organizating by video-conference the 11th Rencontre Point D’Etapes. This conference will last for 2 days: March 17th and 18th. The days are divided in 4 half-day sessions with different topics. Read More
During this period of lockdown, our statistician team stays connected and works together to share their different knowledge in data analysis. Read More
Discover our new graph, which will allow you to understand this ambitious project at a glance. Read More
Instead of having our bi-annual global scientific in Edinburgh, it is still with great pleasure that we spent half a day together by conference call. Read More
Our Swiss partner Qualitas welcomed all HappyMoo partners in their office in Zug. Very intersting discussions arose and a wonderful experimental farm visit was organized! Read More
We are proud to annonce that HappyMoo, in collaboration with the project D4DAiry, will be organizing a congress in April 2022.
Read More
The next EAAP meeting will take place in Davos (Switzerland) from August 30th until September 3rd 2021. A special session for HappyMoo will be held on September, 2nd (session 68)
Read More
HappyMoo project was presented by our colleague from Qualitas during the last annual meeting of the Swiss association for animal sciences
Read More
In conjunction with the ICAR 2021 Annual Conference and in collaboration with IDF, a specific workshop on "Animal-based indicators to promote welfare in dairy cows" is scheduled on 26 April at h. 14.00-17.00 Paris time.
Read More
A machine learning workshop was held in Namur (Belgium) on December, 3rd 2019. The purpose was to have an overview of the current machine learning methods and their applications for animal production
Read More
On May, 3rd was held the first experts workshop concerning the stress topic in CRAw (Gembloux, Belgium).
Read More
Elevéo asbl is in charge of official animal performance recordings for the Walloon farming community, including milk recording. It also maintains phenotypic, genomic and pedigree database for Walloon cattle, and organizes genetic evaluation services for the Walloon breeders and AI companies. Elevéo asbl implements and maintains management and breeding tools for Walloon farmers, vets and extension workers. Elevéo asbl ensures the management of EMR EEIG (70,000 farms in BE, FR, DE, LU, IE, UK, AT).
Elevéo asbl is part of the Walloon association of breeders awé group.
FCEL is a national federation of companies serving cattle and goat breeders. It gathers French organizations that realize official performance recordings of animals. FCEL network is comprised with a large number of farm consultants providing advice services to farmers in the whole France (more than 1,500 technicians and 260 engineers). FCEL delivers IT tools to farmers and extension workers for management and decision making.
LKV-BW is a self-help farmers’ organization. The most important task of the association is to carry out performance and quality tests in the field of animal production on behalf of the state of Baden-Württemberg and to offer accompanying advice to farmers. It includes milk recording for more than 300,000 cows in 7,000 farms. Furthermore, it is the official association for animal identification. LKV-BW delivers IT tools to farmers and extension workers for management and decision making.
Website: https://lkvbw.de/
Qualitas is the competence center for computer science and quantitative genetics for Swiss breeding organisations. Qualitas has proven specialists in the fields of database applications, herd bookkeeping, performance testing and breeding evaluation. Qualitas has powerful hardware, zootechnical database and software applications and a modern printing and shipping line. It delivers IT tools to farmers and extension workers for management and decision making.
Website: https://qualitasag.ch/
Walloon Agricultural Research Centre of Gembloux (CRA-W) is a leading scientific institution, depending on the Walloon Ministry of Agricultures. For 30 years, the Department named “Valorisation des productions” manages an analytical laboratory and has been especially active in the field of the infrared spectrometry and Chemometrics which is the science of extracting information from chemical systems by data-driven means. CRA-W delivers standardization materials to EU labs for the service of EMR
Website: https://www.cra.wallonie.be/fr
ULiège- Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech is a major player in agricultural and biology science in Belgium. In particular, Numerical Genetics, Genomics and Modelling group (NGGM) has extensive experience providing scientific services in animal breeding, genetics and genomics, management and environmental challenges in dairy farms. Among other, the NGGM group has strong skills on milk composition for quality and biomarkers of interest.
Website: https://www.gembloux.uliege.be/cms/c_4039827/fr/gembloux-agro-bio-tech
ESTEL is a company which develops innovative digital solutions for the agricultural world and SMEs. This is the historical partner of both FCEL and EMR EEIG with regard to IT development and farm level data driven applications. ESTEL has specific skills in API (Application Programming Interface) for web-based systems, to optimize communication between various software components.
Website: https://www.estel-numerique.com/
LKV-NRW is a State Control Association and a service provider in agriculture with the following areas of responsibility: milk performance recording, milk quality check, animal identification, QM-Milk and QS system consultant. For the testing of raw milk samples, the LKV NRW uses the accredited test laboratory of IfM GmbH & Co. LKV-NRW delivers IT tools to farmers and extension workers for management and decision making.
Website: http://www.lkv-nrw.de/
CONVIS is an agricultural cooperative. Its main activities are animal production and agricultural extension. CONVIS has a direct relationship with farmers and provides milk recording for 80% of dairy farms in Luxembourg. It organizes other performance tests, and advices on all aspects of livestock breeding, feeding, husbandry and care. It’s in charge of safeguarding the interests of livestock breeding. It delivers IT tools to farmers and extension workers for management and decision making.
Website: https://www.convis.lu/home.html
IDELE is the reference technical institute for ruminant farming and breeding in France. It brings technical solutions for farmers and economic actors in the sectors, to value chains economic actors, complying with social issues such as animal welfare, traceability and environment. Its activities are from applied research to technology transfer, in animal health and welfare, genetics, animal husbandry, products quality, farm human resources, information systems, etc.
Website: http://idele.fr/
Irish Cattle Breeding Federation provides cattle breeding information services to the Irish farmers and industry to make the most profitable and sustainable decisions, through the use of the services provided from its database. ICBF’s activities revolve around the maintenance and growth of the national cattle breeding database, which holds information on all registered animals including performance data. It delivers IT tools to farmers and extension workers for management and decision making.
Website: https://www.icbf.com/wp/
NMR provides an integrated service working for both farmers and milk buyers as well as an independent source of data for advisors such as vets, farm consultants and breed societies. NMR is the leading supplier of milk recording services in the UK, providing management information on individual cow's performance in terms of milk quality, yield and fertility. It is acknowledged by the industry that NMR is the market leader in the provision and support of dairy software in Great Britain.
Website: https://www.nmr.co.uk/
Die Arbeiten im HappyMoo Projekt sind im Jahr 2021 entschieden vorangekommen. CONVIS war konkret an mehreren Referenzprobenkampagnen beteiligt und hat sich parallel zusätzlich in mehreren Fachbereichen gewinnbringend eingebracht. Dazu zählten «daily check», Ökonomik vom Tierwohl sowie die lokale Interpretation und Weiterverarbeitung der Ergebnisse. Das Projekt läuft 2022 weiter und auch wenn noch viele Arbeitsfelder nicht abgeschlossen sind, konnten erste konkrete Resultate nun im Herbst letzten Jahres bei der EAAP (European Federation of Animal Science) Tagung im schweizerischen Davos vorgestellt werden. Hier nun auszugweise ein aktualisierter Überblick zu dem Projekt. Read More
Vom 27. bis 29. April 2022 fand im belgischen Namur der Dair’Innov22 Kongress für Innovationen im Milchsektor statt. Die wallonische Hauptstadt wurde als Gastgeber- stadt für den Dair'Innov Kongress ausgewählt. Diese Veranstaltung wurde gemeinsam von den Projekten Interreg NWE HappyMoo und dem Projekt D4Dairy vom Programm COMET aus Österreich organisiert und hat weit mehr als 150 wissenschaftliche For- scher, Profiberater, Techniker im Milchsektor, Milcherfassungs- und Zuchtorganisa- tionen, Technologieanbieter, Tierärzte und Laboringenieure aus der ganzen Welt zusammengebracht. Read More
Im Rahmen vom Interreg Projekt HappyMoo organisierte CONVIS am 14. und 15. Juni in Ettelbruck einen internationalen Workshop zur Thematik „Antibiotika in der Milch- produktion und die hiermit verbundenen ökonomischen Konsequenzen“. Es nahmen insgesamt 17 Teilnehmer, darunter acht Tierärzte, aus Belgien, Deutschland, Frank- reich, der Schweiz und Luxemburg am Workshop teil. Im Folgenden eine Kurzfassung wichtiger Eckpunkte aus diesem Workshop. Read More
Un projet européen auquel participent des chercheurs wallons consiste à analyser le lait des vaches pour déterminer le niveau de stress des animaux. Le but est d'améliorer le bien-être animal et d'augmenter la production. Read More
Le lait est composé d’une multitude de molécules pouvant tant refléter l’état de bien-être de la vache que prédire précocement l’émergence d’une pathologie. Partant de ce postulat, le projet HappyMoo, consistant à identifier et à quantifier dans cette matrice, par spectrométrie IR, des biomarqueurs de stress, de maladie ou de faim, a vu le jour. Ce projet Interreg Europe du Nord-Ouest rassemble 12 partenaires de 7 pays, dont le Centre wallon de Recherches agronomiques (CRA-W), Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech et Elevéo (Association wallonne des éleveurs), le chef de file. Read More
Le projet européen HappyMoo vise à analyser le bien-être des vaches laitières grâce à la composition de leur lait. Le projet est en fin de concrétisation. Il a été présenté lors du Dair’Innov Congress de Namur. Read More
Des délégations venues de toute l'Europe et même d'Amérique du Nord vont passer trois jours à Namur, jusqu'à vendredi. La capitale wallonne a en effet été choisie comme ville-hôte pour accueillir le Dair'Innov Congress, autrement dit le Congrès de l'innovation dans le secteur du lait. Read More
L’analyse du lait des vaches laitières par spectrométrie, actuellement sous-utilisée, doit permettre de mieux évaluer le bien-être des vaches laitières, ont expliqué Elevéo, branche de l’Association wallonne des Eleveurs (Awé), et ses partenaires, en prélude d’un congrès organisé à Namur du 27 au 29 avril. Read More
Durant trois jours, Namur va accueillir le « Dair’Innov 22 », un congrès rassemblant une centaine de scientifiques venus d’Europe, du Canada et des USA, pour évoquer les recherches en matière de bien-être animal. Dans lequel la Wallonie est pionnière. Read More
Two articles were published by our colleague from Qualitas in journals of Swiss cattle breeding associations. Read More