Animal monitoring technology can change the farmer’s lifestyle for the better

Animal health advice for farmers

Beef catle weaaring their blue Allflex Livestock Intelligence tags.

Back in the early 1980s, I remember talking with a local businessman and entrepreneur in the Grand Hotel in Fermoy.

Jim was always on the lookout for the next big thing that he could possibly make a buck on.

He was telling me of his efforts to try to persuade the Department of Agriculture at the time to bring in electronic tags instead of the brass tags that were being used back then.

Jim could import and supply implants that would be inserted into the ear, much like the hormonal implants that were in vogue in those days. I imagine that they would have been larger versions of the microchips we use nowadays in horses, dogs, etc.

The idea was thrown out as not viable.

Times have moved on a lot since then.

We have seen the introduction of a lot of electronic tags and collars that are used around the milking yard to control the amount of in-parlour feed that a cow should get, depending on her milk yield, for instance.

Others like the pedometers and the MooMonitor can be used to tell an animal is in heat.

The other evening, I was looking at a webinar that outlined the latest development in technology, using an electronic tag or a neck collar, whichever is your preference.

The Allflex Livestock Intelligence tag and collar is marketed as Sense Hub and is manufactured in Mullingar.

It is part of MSD’s Animal Health Intelligence unit.

Going on a virtual farm walk in Watergrasshill and listening to the farmer and their vet talking about the benefits of this system really got me excited about it.

The electronics in the tag or collar pick up the animal’s eating, drinking, ruminal movements and general activity, and this is relayed through a fixed sensory system and interpreted by it to give the farmer an ongoing graph.

The farmer can look at this on his/her mobile phone for each individual animal or as a group, to see how they are performing.

The farm in question is a well-known beef farm in the locality, and the system that they were using, and were very happy with, was the SenseHub Beef.

There is also a SenseHub Dairy, and each system can be tailored for the individual needs of each farm.

Apparently the body changes, through things like its ruminal movement pattern, as an animal starts to become unwell.

The SenseHub picks up on this and sends alerts to the farmer’s mobile, telling them that this animal is starting to become unwell, anything from 12 to 24 hours before they begin to exhibit clinical signs.

This means that they can be treated early and brought back to peak production quickly, thereby cutting the losses associated with long term treatments.

The system can also pick up on heats that might otherwise go undetected.

Teagasc will tell you that the cost of missing one heat in a cow is €250.

Others who have spoken about their use of this system tell of the changes that it has made to their lifestyle.

Nowadays farmers find workers very hard to get, and a lot of the work is done alone.

This can be very hard during the spring and the breeding season.

A lot of farmers work part-time and find the breeding season particularly hard, watching cows and heifers before they go to work and again when they come home in the evening, probably missing a number of them altogether.

This system seems to take all the slog out of the day and gives people more time to spend with the family.

Technology never rests.

• Paul Redmond, MVB, MRCVS, Cert DHH, Duntahane Veterinary Clinic, Fermoy