Feeding behaviour in terms of duration and daily pattern contains valuable information about the metabolic health of dairy cows. Several commercial systems are available to measure this behaviour. However, since these sensors can be expensive, it would be beneficial to develop a simple and cost effective system for this purpose. Thus, the objectives of this study were 1) to optimise the setup of a UHF-RFID system for monitoring feeding behaviour at the feeding fence by passive UHF ear tags and 2) to characterise the size and shape of the reading area of the system testing two different antenna positions relative to the feeding fence and two types of UHF ear tags. A free-form UHF cable antenna with 6 m active length was placed along a section of the feeding fence in a conventional free-stall barn using pipe clamps. The two antenna arrangements were compared by manually measuring the reading range in a grid with four measurement heights in front of and behind the feeding fence. The measurements revealed that a greater distance of the antenna to the wall resulted in a higher reading range. However, the reading range decreased along the antenna. The antenna position closer to the feeding fence in combination with ear tag Type B showed promising results. Thus, it was chosen for further tests. In a next step, the system will be extended along the feeding fence and validated with cows using video observations.
