Animal Welfare Award EuroTier 2026

SmartCalving

Hall 12 | Stand D58

A variety of sensors and digital systems are used in modern barns. They continuously record animal, climate and operating data, process this to produce information and make it available to the user. Nevertheless, a crucial step is often left up to humans – that of actual action. The existing technologies essentially operate as isolated solutions and do not communicate with one another. If a sensor system recognises that calving is imminent, the farmer himself has to react and initiate corresponding measures in the barn, for example. This equates to a great deal of work and necessitates the presence of humans, particularly when such incidents occur at night. Genuine, intelligent automation of the barn has therefore only been possible to a limited extent thus far.

Together with smaXtec, Lock SmartSolutions has developed SmartCalving, an intelligent solution for the calving area that consequently implements this previously missing automation step for the first time. SmartCalving combines external animal signals with climate data from the SBE Farm Management System and the existing actuators in the calving area, including curtains, fans and gates. If the sensors recognise that calving is imminent, the system automatically triggers measures that have been defined in advance. For example, the barn climate is adjusted and the calving area is set to an optimally protected, draught-free state. Following the event, the system independently returns to its regular automatic mode. 

The innovative character lies in the combination of two previously extensively separate worlds: precise animal health monitoring and intelligent building or technology control. A pure warning signal is transformed into an automated action for the first time. This means that the sensor system does not merely become a source of information, but also the initiator of an entire digital process. SmartCalving therefore shows how networked isolated solutions can be transformed into a genuinely intelligent, autonomously operating barn.

Smart Farrowing Pen: AI-supported animal welfare analysis and adaptive barn control

Hall 17 | Stand B04

Assistance systems for supporting animal monitoring by farmers are continuing to gain in importance, particularly for further increasing animal welfare. So far, interpretation of the data obtained via such systems by means of video monitoring and automatic evaluation of the animals' behaviour and the resulting conclusions and adjustments to the husbandry environment have been undertaken manually and in individual steps by the farmer. 

With the Smart Farrowing Pen, WEDA Dammann & Westerkamp GmbH is presenting the automation of this entire process for the first time and is therefore closing the yawning gap that has existed until now – that of adjusting control variables in the barn automatically and in real time based on the animals' behaviour.

The Smart Farrowing Pen is a retrofittable, camera-based and AI-controlled assistance system for WEDA farrowing pens that analyses the behaviour of sows and piglets around the clock. The AI combines real-time animal behaviour analysis with the automated barn and feeding technology. Control variables such as the piglet nest temperature or the feed curve can therefore be adjusted on the basis of the animals' behaviour without the need for any action on the part of the farmer himself. 

In this way, animal behaviour is actively integrated into the control of the husbandry environment for the first time. In effect, the animals more or less control the barn themselves. The resulting autonomous farrowing pen acts proactively rather than reactively and bridges the gap between digital recording and automated execution in the barn.