This chapter presents common aspects applying in all EU Member States and in the UK (since Directive 2010/63/EU was transposed into British law before Brexit), and gives the specifications that apply in each research institute of the SmartCow project.

Feed intake is important to consider when studying welfare, productivity and efficiency in ruminants, particularly cattle. Over the last decade, several methods for automatic intake recording have been developed. These methods have been described in the chapter on feed and water intake of the present book of methods. Automatic feed bins do not only record feed intake, but also feeding behaviour. The duration of feed bin visits estimated by the Insentec Roughage Intake Control system...