Text alerting you to next heat cycle saves money

Herdalerts is a new heat-cycle management service. It’s €60 to register, plus €1 per cow (for example, €115 per year for a herd of 55 cows).

When users observe the cow in heat, they send the last five digits of the tag number to the system. Herdalerts sends reminder texts, for the next four heat cycles, to the user’s mobile phone. If the animal breaks the cycle, the user retexts the tag number to restart the new cycle.

With a missed heat cycle for one cow estimated to cost a dairy farmer up to €250, and a suckler farmer up to €55, the system could pay for itself by detecting just one extra dairy-cow heat.