Farm View: Why new agtech developments mean cows no longer have secrets
The smaXtec rumen bolus
Dairy cows no longer have any secrets from herdowners equipped with electronic monitoring devices.
The latest development is that the herdowner will even be able to know how much water is consumed by each individual cow.
With milk being 87% water, if a cow drinks too little, her feed intake will reduce, and her milk yield will drop. It is, therefore, important to provide all animals with sufficient water of the best quality at all times.
Unique technology for monitoring the drinking quantity per cow has been added to the smaXtec bolus which continuously collects data from cows on many farms internationally.
The completely maintenance-free rumen bolus is administered once and transmits a wealth of information relevant to cow health to the farmer's smartphone and computer.
For its innovations and business success, smaXtec was recognised last week, winning the Royal Dairy Innovation Award 2023 for its TruDrinking concept, at the Dairy-Tech exhibition in England.
This follows international awards for the smaXtec bolus during 2022, such as the AgriScot Show's Innovation Award; a Styrian Export Award in smaXtec's home country, Austria; and an Ernst & Young GreenTech & Energy Scale-up silver medal.
Measuring water consumption is now added to the list of data provided by the smaXtec system.
Sufficient water intake is crucial for milk yield, feed intake, urea content in the milk, and cow health. Milk yield can drop as much as 27% if cows do not drink enough. A cow needs three to four litres of water to produce one litre of milk.
TruDrinking is the name of the latest addition to the information gathering by the smaXtec bolus, which detects how much water is taken in, by monitoring the temperature change after each drinking cycle.
The farmer learns in good time from the smaXtec system if a cow drinks less, and thus knows she may be sick, and can take action accordingly.
By monitoring individual animals, the farmer also becomes aware of faulty water troughs or insufficient water quality at an early stage, and can fix such problems.
More than 300,000 health messages are sent to smaXtec customers every month, due to the detection of mastitis, metritis, respiratory disease. infections, ketosis, milk fever, heat detection, onset of calving, and heat stress. Changes in water drinking can now be added.
Farmers who opt for the smaXtec pH version of the bolus get additional alerts if sub-acute rumen acidosis (SARA) is detected. Research shows that up to 50% of fresh and high-lactating cows can suffer from SARA.
When action is needed on foot of smaXtec alerts, an email or push notification is also sent. Alerts include suggested insemination time, if heat has been detected, and there are notifications 15 hours on average before calving.
Precise alerts are made possible by the bolus recording measurements such as temperature, and the number and duration of contractions of the reticulum, thus accurately identifying rumination times and patterns, and taking note when they become irregular.
The knowledge of all cows collected by each bolus, paired with smaXtec’s artificial intelligence, enables the system to monitor cow health, and to send alerts when unusual patterns are detected.
Cows in housing or at pasture are equally monitored by smaXtec.
Another new cow monitor is claimed to monitor their body condition and detect lameness better than a trained stockperson.
Herdvision captures three-dimensional images using a small digital camera positioned above the cows, and is coupled with cloud computing to measure body condition each time the cow passes under the camera, and then reports changes in condition directly to a smartphone. The app's daily alerts and weekly trend analysis can allow early intervention in feeding and herd management, to ensure cow fertility and milk production are maximised.
It also automates detection of lame cows, allowing for early intervention.
Like the smaXtec bolus, HerdVision can monitor cows 365 days a year, freeing up the farmer's valuable time.
Herdvision was one of the three finalists for last week's Royal Dairy Innovation Award.
The third finalist was Envirolac.
For environment-conscious farmers, this fat supplement for high-yielding dairy cows is a new product with a lower carbon footprint than palm-oil based alternatives.
It is manufactured from locally sourced vegetable oils, and marine oils.
It is made by UFAC-UK, who say it can reduce the feed carbon footprint per kilo of milk by 11%, compared to a palm-based supplement.
