Design of a multimodel of a dairy cows herd attacked by mastitis

We present the building of a discrete event multimodel simulation tool of livestock farming systems, regrouping several mathematical models, and reproducing cattle herd performances through an individual based model. The main goal of this simulator is to study and predict consequences of mastitis occurrences on dairy herds taking into account individual characteristics of animals and seasonal and livestock parameters. The model presented is the result of a close collaboration between epidemiologists and simulationists and we were able to use real field data from animal experiments. The project includes a domain analysis of dairy herd systems in France, using an object oriented approach and Unified Modelling Language tools. The software, written in Java, is to become a decision-aid tool for stock breeder advisors. 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.