Labelling of video images : the first step to develop an automatic monitoring tool of pig aggression

Aggressive behaviour in pigs is a serious issue in pig farming since it poses enormous welfare and economic problems in livestock management. Mixing animals usually results in aggression among the group members because the animals have to establish a social hierarchy. At times, this aggressive behaviour can become so intense that animals seriously injure themselves or their pen mates. To immediately identify aggression is therefore extremely important for the farmer in order to limit the economical losses and to increase the welfare of the animals. By using video analysis, it is possible to develop an automatic monitoring technology that is able to detect aggression in pigs. Applying a non-invasive technology such as cameras is a very powerful approach since it does not intrude into the animals' hierarchy and is at the same time highly cost efficient. To develop such a product, it is first required that ethologists observe video images and label the behaviour of the animals in order to define the Golden Standard. This step is very crucial, but time-consuming since it demands hours and hours of observation. This paper describes a tool for helping experts in the observation and manual labelling of specific behaviours, for example aggression.