HappyMoo


Project Summary

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.

 

Wallonie

project co-financed by Région Wallonne

 

 

Topics

The project decided to focus of 4 sub-topics to assess the absence of disease, hunger and stress:

  • Mastitis and lameness

    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

  • Negative energy balance

    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)

  • Stress

    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)


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Project Partners

  • France Conseil Elevage

    42 Rue de Châteaudun
    Paris
    75009
    France

    View partner details

  • Regional association for performance testing in livestock breeding of Baden-Württemberg

    1-3 Heinrich-Baumann Str.
    Stuttgart
    70190
    Germany

    View partner details

  • Qualitas AG

    56 Chamerstrasse
    Zug
    6300
    Switzerland

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  • Centre wallon de Recherche agronomique

    24 Chaussée de Namur
    Gembloux
    5030
    Belgium

    View partner details

  • University of Liège - Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech

    2 Passage des déportés
    Gembloux
    5030
    Belgium

    View partner details

  • ESTEL Numérique

    Technopôle Agricole BP80067, Domaine de Pixérécourt
    Malzéville
    54220
    France

    View partner details

  • State Control Association of North Rhine-Westphalia

    85 Bischofstraße
    Krefeld
    47809
    Germany

    View partner details

  • CONVIS s.c.

    4 Zone Artisanale et Commerciale
    Ettelbruck
    9085
    Luxembourg

    View partner details

  • Institut de l'Elevage

    149 Rue de Bercy
    Paris
    75012
    France

    View partner details

  • Irish Cattle Breeding Federation Society Limited

    0 Highfield House, Shinagh, Bandon, County Cork
    Shinagh
    P72 X050
    Ireland

    View partner details

  • National Milk Records PLC

    4 Greenways Business Park, Bellinger Close
    Chippenham
    SN15 1BN
    United Kingdom

    View partner details

  • Elevéo by awé groupe

    4 Rue des Champs Elysées
    Ciney
    5590
    Belgium

    View partner details

Lead partner

Organisation Address Email Website
Elevéo by awé groupe 4 Rue des Champs Elysées
Ciney
5590
Belgium
jleblois@awegroupe.be www.awenet.be
Name Contact Name Email 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

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.

News


EAAP conference - session 68

Posted on

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


Events



Who we are


Discover our partners

Elevéo

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.

Website: http://www.awenet.be/awe/commun/asbl/asbl.php

France Conseil Elevage

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.

Website: https://www.france-conseil-elevage.fr/

Landesverband Baden-Württemberg für Leistungsprüfungen in der Tierzucht e. V.

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 AG

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/

Centre wallon de Recherches agronomiques

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

Université de Liège-Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech

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 Numérique

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/

Landeskontrollverband Nordrhein-Westfalen e. V.

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 s.c.

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

Institut de l’Elevage

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 Society Limited

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/

NATIONAL MILK RECORDS PLC

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/

Stay informed


Archives

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Aug. 2022:

Feb. 2022:

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Mar. 2021:

Jan. 2021:

Press


Fortschritte beim Projekt HappyMoo

Posted on

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

Dair’Innov22 Kongress in Namur (B)

Posted on

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

Workshop über den Einsatz von Antibiotika in der Milchproduktion

Posted on

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

Le bien-être des vaches évalué par leur lait

Posted on

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


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