EVALUATING ANIMALS USING EYE CHARACTERISTICS

摘要

A method of analysing a beast includes a first step of restraining a beast (10) such that an eye (11) may be illuminated by a light source (12) sufficiently to permit imaging of the features of the eye. The visual imaging apparatus (13) captures a digital image of the eye and sends the resultant signal to a computer (14) which processes the digital image according to known image processing techniques such as edge recognition, pattern recognition and fuzzy processing. By the use of such techniques, an operator is able to select a technique, verified by experimentation, to identify a selected characteristic such as meat tenderness in the beast.