A short experiment was carried out to get more information about the use and the accuracy of the Ethosys system. The Ethosys system manufactured by IMF Technology GmbH (Germany) is an individual monitoring system for analysing the behaviour of vertebrates. The Ethosys system was compared with the data set of the automatic feeding system and the results of the video recording system. The research was carried out at the IMAG-DLO experimental farm. All data were transformed to 10 min values and expressed as a percentage of the 10 min interval. The experiment was carried out with four lactating cows during three days. For the analysis 48 hours were used, starting on 00: 00 h on day 1 and ending on 24:00 h on day 2. Although the Ethosys system can record the feed intake of cows, especially roughage, there could not be found a good relationship between the time the cows spent at the feeding places and the Ethosys feeding values. The Ethosys system cannot record lying patterns of cows. The current Ethosys system cannot be used in the experiments with automatic milking and grazing of cows in regard to the demands of IMAG-DLO. Nevertheless there seem to be some possiblities to improve the results. Further research is needed.