CEALVET and Bioacoustics
Animals’ vocalizations are a way of expressing their state of health. Understanding what they want to communicate through the sounds emitted is important to define if an external factor can negatively or positively affect their well-being.
Bioacoustics is one of the new branches of precision livestock farming that has been growing in recent years. By capturing the sounds emitted by animals, these new technologies translate the signals into data, helping farmers more easily monitor large numbers of animals.
In 2019, CEALVET created a Proof of Concept (PoC) together with Ramón Llull University to continuously record the vocalization of broilers on a real commercial farm, as a first approach to validate the feasibility of obtaining bioacoustics indicators from chickens. The first results of the PoC in a commercial farm validated the hypothesis of obtaining both acoustic characterizations of the songs of the animals and the identification of environmental noise, such as fans, feeders, drinkers, routine handling.
In 2020, CEALVET wins a Eurostars project funded by the European Union, “Development of new integrated technologies against multi-resistant pathogens in broilers” (E114423 – ITAM). The acoustic work carried out during the ITAM project was a first approximation to find acoustic differences in animal vocalizations due to the administration of pro+prebiotics to demonstrate the efficacy of the product through vocal expression. The successful results obtained in the ITAM project lay the foundations for future research and have considerably increased the knowledge of CEALVET in bioacoustics.
In January 2025, CEALVET obtained the European patent (EP 4412448) for the protection of a method for assessing the welfare of farm animals, the result of many years of research.
Our Research
CEALVET is focused in the study of the vocalizations of broilers during their production cycle in hatchery and commercial farms to improve their animal welfare and productivity. Our R&D multidiciplinary team works with a growing set of over 5Tb of raw acoustic data from broilers, with the aim of modeling through artificial intelligence animal calls to be able to detect or anticipate animal responses to external stimuli.
CEALVET works with his own non-invasive bioacoustic recording prototype specially designed for the poultry enviroment to statistically analyse and post process animal biological respone through their calls.
This innovation in the sector has driven CEALVET to participate in various projects with national and European partners, allowing us to deepen our research and refine the results obtained.
In 2024, CEALVET won its second European project, “Bioacoustic Automatic Evaluation system for poultry Health” (acronym: BAEHealth), in which, together with its French partner LDC S.A., it will develop a web application based on artificial intelligence that will offer an innovative service to automatically detect, in real time and quantitatively, the level of well-being of birds through their vocalizations, from birth to the end of the production cycle. The project will develop a bioacoustic technology for industrial environments that will enable the analysis of chicken vocalization data, using machine learning algorithms to detect and record stress levels in vocalizations captured by IoT (Internet of Things) sensors. CEALVET is leading the project, which aims to significantly improve the poultry sector while adhering to European guidelines on animal welfare and health.
In 2024, CEALVET has collaborated with the start-up SUBNIL IBERIA S.L., in the research project “Development and implementation of new technologies to adapt animal transport by road to climate change” (TRANSBIOSAFE), of the Unitat d’Innovació i Transformació Tecnològica. The project focused on the misting application of the natural biocide Sanidermix during the transport of poultry and pigs, with the aim of improving and evaluating animal welfare. To this end, animal vocalizations were analyzed using CEALVET’s VocalData technology, employing bioacoustic parameters such as frequency and number of vocalizations. In addition, continuous environmental monitoring was conducted to identify stressful situations associated with adverse climatic factors, such as high temperatures and humidity levels. The results validated Sanidermix as a non-toxic product that contributes to improved animal welfare and reduced water and energy consumption, as well as reduced wastewater treatment processes, compared to synthetic biocides. As a final result, the project enabled the development of a predictive model based on Artificial Intelligence capable of detecting early animal welfare problems during transport, while guaranteeing biosecurity standards.
CEALVET has gone further and, in 2025, in an Agrotech project together with CTAQUA, has carried out a proof of concept that consists of capturing the sounds emitted by fish or crustaceans in the aquatic environment in order to analyze their behavior in relation to feeding and disinfection with the natural biocide Sanidermix.
CEALVET places animal welfare at the heart of its mission, aiming to provide the poultry industry, and beyond, with the ability to continuously, quickly, and objectively monitor animal health. Our goal is to refine our VocalData technology to enable farmers and their animals to achieve sustainable, humane, and safe production.
If you’d like to learn more about our research projects, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Furthermore, if you’d like to delve deeper into our research areas, you can consult our articles at the following links.