{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,6]],"date-time":"2026-06-06T05:23:03Z","timestamp":1780723383863,"version":"3.54.1"},"reference-count":57,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,17]],"date-time":"2021-04-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1618617600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Meat &amp; Livestock Australia","award":["P.PSH.0857"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["P.PSH.0857"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Animals"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Identifying the licking behaviour in beef cattle may provide a means to measure time spent licking for estimating individual block supplement intake. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of tri-axial accelerometers deployed in a neck-collar and an ear-tag, to characterise the licking behaviour of beef cattle in individual pens. Four, 2-year-old Angus steers weighing 368 \u00b1 9.3 kg (mean \u00b1 SD) were used in a 14-day study. Four machine learning (ML) algorithms (decision trees [DT], random forest [RF], support vector machine [SVM] and k-nearest neighbour [kNN]) were employed to develop behaviour classification models using three different ethograms: (1) licking vs. eating vs. standing vs. lying; (2) licking vs. eating vs. inactive; and (3) licking vs. non-licking. Activities were video-recorded from 1000 to 1600 h daily when access to supplement was provided. The RF algorithm exhibited a superior performance in all ethograms across the two deployment modes with an overall accuracy ranging from 88% to 98%. The neck-collar accelerometers had a better performance than the ear-tag accelerometers across all ethograms with sensitivity and positive predictive value (PPV) ranging from 95% to 99% and 91% to 96%, respectively. Overall, the tri-axial accelerometer was capable of identifying licking behaviour of beef cattle in a controlled environment. Further research is required to test the model under actual grazing conditions.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/ani11041153","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,18]],"date-time":"2021-04-18T22:15:13Z","timestamp":1618784113000},"page":"1153","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":20,"title":["A Pilot Study Using Accelerometers to Characterise the Licking Behaviour of Penned Cattle at a Mineral Block Supplement"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"11","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9401-8388","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Gamaliel","family":"Simanungkalit","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Ruminant Research Group (RRG), School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0905-8527","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jamie","family":"Barwick","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Precision Agriculture Research Group (PARG), School of Science and Technology, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6475-1503","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Frances","family":"Cowley","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Ruminant Research Group (RRG), School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9110-6729","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Robin","family":"Dobos","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Precision Agriculture Research Group (PARG), School of Science and Technology, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia"},{"name":"Livestock Industries Centre, NSW Department of Primary Industries, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Roger","family":"Hegarty","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Ruminant Research Group (RRG), School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,17]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"543","DOI":"10.2527\/1997.752543x","article-title":"Delivery method and supplement consumption by grazing ruminants: A review","volume":"75","author":"Bowman","year":"1997","journal-title":"J. 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