Watch: Young engineers launch solar-powered smart feeder to track cattle performance

The feeder reads an animal’s ID tag to give each animal its allocated ration. Each time the animal steps into the feeder, it is weighed and the daily liveweight gain is recorded in software which the farmer can access from their phone

Máirtín Gannon and Shane Gaule from SM Advanced Technologies have been working on the automated feed and weigh station for around three years.

Two young agricultural engineers have teamed up to launch their own automated feed and weigh station for cattle and calves.

The kit can hold up to two tonnes of feed pellets and is solar-powered so it can be used in even the most remote locations, and aims to allow stock keepers to monitor the individual performance of animals, while also improving farm safety.

Both in their mid-20s, Máirtín Gannon and Shane Gaule from SM Advanced Technologies have been working on the idea for around three years. Shane had begun his own engineering business carrying out repairs for other farmers when he got the idea for the feeder.

“I’m farming at home with my dad and I’ve my own engineering company as well. Animals can be dangerous in group settings, particularly for the older generation, so I came up with this idea of a solar-powered feeder so that you can use it remotely from the app, and measure the intake of the animal and how the performance of the animal is doing day-to-day,” he said.

His family run a 80- to 90-cow dairy farm and calf-to-beef system, so the feeder was something he wanted to build for his own farm initially.

“We keep our own calves from calf to slaughter. We are always looking at our cattle and how we can get the best performance out of them and finish them at the best time possible,” he said. 

"I love farming and I love making things, and you have to move with technology as well. I just had to bite the bullet one day and order the steel and start making it one day, I suppose."

He then paired up with Kilkenny man Máirtín Gannon to figure out the software side of the machine.

The feeder works by reading an animal’s ID tag to give each animal its allocated ration. Each time the animal steps into the feeder, it is weighed and the daily liveweight gain is recorded in software which the farmer can access from their mobile phone.

Máirtín explained:

You can see your average daily weight gain for the group as a whole, and you can also click on individuals and monitor their performance compared to the group average.

It means that underperforming animals and sick animals can be quickly identified and assisted if necessary, and rations adjusted to optimise performance with just a few clicks remotely. It also directly addresses a growing challenge for many farms - the shortage of labour.

"Feeding your cattle is a task performed on almost every farm in the country every single day," Máirtín said. "Competition for renting land is quite steep, and the land close to the farm is usually used for dairy stock, so a lot of us are in a situation now where we could be renting land 20-30 minutes from where we live, so it's time that adds up. 

"A lot of us are relying on parents and grandparents to help out, but a lot of them might be looking to take a step back themselves. Farming is getting so fine-tuned, we are pulling data in all sorts of ways now, so it's just another labour-intensive job that we can take a bit of the work out of."

The duo have been carrying out on-farm trials for the feeder over the last year, and this year were named finalists in the start-up of the year category in this year’s Enterprise Ireland Innovation Awards at the National Ploughing Championships.

“We entered not really knowing it was a competition,” Máirtín laughed. “The Innovation Arena was always one of the stands we really liked to visit ourselves every year at the Ploughing, and that’s all we wanted when we put it forward. 

"We thought we had a bit of an invention and it’d be great to get it into the arena and get a bit of exposure and get to meet farmers throughout the week.

"We've been delighted by the response we have got so far with it. This has essentially been the national launch for us, as we have just been keeping it very local during the testing stage."

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James Maloney from Enterprise Ireland explained the focus on using data to improve farm productivity was part of a wider trend.

“Definitely, the big trend here this week has been the use of AI. We can see that companies utilising it in making their products – enhancing them. We can see it in terms of how they are doing their R&D [research and development].

“It’s making the collection of data much, much easier and companies are generally making the push towards it,” he said.