Impact evaluation of score classes and annotation regions in deep learning-based dairy cow body condition prediction

Body condition scoring is a simple method to estimate the energy supply of dairy cattle. Our study aimed to investigate the accuracy with which supervised machine learning, a deep convolutional neural network, can be used to retrieve body condition score (BCS) classes estimated by an expert. Using a simple action camera, we recorded images of animals rumps in three large-scale farms. The images were annotated with three different-sized boxes by an expert. A Faster-RCNN pre-trained model was trained on 12 and 3 BCS classes. Training in 12 classes, with a 0 error range, the Cohens kappa value yielded minimal agreement. Allowing an error range of 0.25, we obtained a minimum or week agreement. With an error range of 0.5, we had strong or almost perfect agreements. The kappa values of the approach trained on 3 classes show that we can classify all animals into BCS categories with at least moderate agreement. Furthermore, CNNs trained in 3 BCS classes show a remarkably higher proportion of strong agreement than those trained in 12 classes. The prediction precision based on training with various annotation regions showed no meaningful differences.