The Pig Cough Monitor: from research topic to commercial product

Respiratory diseases are an important cause of mortality and decreased productivity in pigs. Manually checking pig cough occurrence is labour-intense, subjective and difficult to manage, especially in larger farms. An automatic pig cough monitor, that registers pig coughs 24/7, is therefore a valuable tool for the farm manager: it allows him to have an objective measure of pig cough occurrence throughout his entire farm. The pig cough monitor contributes to improved animal health and welfare, and aims at reducing the global use of antibiotics, by detecting respiratory problems in an early stage, as soon as first coughing symptoms are present. This paper has three contributions: First, it details the research trajectory that resulted in the SoundTalks pig cough monitor. In this research the properties of spontaneous coughing (due to an infection) and induced coughing (due to an air pollutant) are examined. Second, it discusses the pig cough monitor design and operating principle. Third, it presents our further validation strategy to assess product value for the farmer. For this end, forty fattening pig compartment are currently being equipped with pig cough monitor systems.status: publishe