Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an important tool for optimising breeding processes in several areas of animal production. In this thesis, we have presented examples from the literature, mainly for the identification and counting of cattle. The individual identification of animals, the monitoring of their behaviour and the control of their movements support a number of conclusions from both animal welfare and veterinary point of view. Automation of the processing of captured images has also become essential. This process is supported by Artificial Intelligence. Deep learning and neural networks are excellent tools for segmenting images and processing their content based on different features. Convolutional neural networks are specifically powerful for such tasks and we have seen that further developments of these networks (e.g. Faster R-CNN) allow even more efficient image analysis procedures. Processing animal images can be a major step forward for automatic analysis and identification of livestock. It also allows early intervention in the event of disease. In the context of individual identification, it is important to underline that, when complemented with other measurement options, e.g. sensor measurements, it offers even more complex applications that have not been available so far.