Text alerting you to next heat cycle saves money
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.
Herdalerts was developed by economics lecturer, Dr Ann Kirby, and by Chris Geary, who worked as an engineer in IT for 15 years, while dairy farming, and currently works full-time in dairy farming in West Limerick. Chris noticed cows showing heat before the breeding season, but rarely recorded them, due to inconvenience.
“I kept forgetting or losing my pen and paper. I knew that not recording heat cycles effectively was costing me money.
“I did not realise how much until I started recording them using this system”.
