Post by Willow on Mar 25, 2014 13:05:56 GMT 9.5
Once upon a time I would have thought "how clever" now this just makes me very sad - poor cows
SENSORS, cloud data and computing number crunching are tackling a crucial farming question: when is a cow on heat and ready for insemination.
Farmers typically apply paint or stick tokens on the rear of the animal and check if they have been dislodged by other cows.
But IT can offer more accuracy. CSIRO senior research scientist Greg Timms says that by using special sensing collars, technology could detect up to 90 per cent of the instances when a cow was on heat — as opposed to about 50 per cent now.
“We used those trials to come up with those mapping algorithms and we’re getting about 95 per cent accuracy with behaviour classification,” Dr Timms said.
CSIRO and the Tasmanian Institute of Technology began researching the issue in January last year on a farm at Elliott in northwest Tasmania.
Twenty-four cows were fitted with collars with sensors typically found on smartphones — a GPS, an accelerometer for detecting movement, and a magnetometer for detecting direction.
From this, the two organisations created algorithms that mapped recorded data against cow behaviours observed by researchers, including grazing, walking, searching for food and ruminating.
A second two-month trial then took place from October last year, when observed on-heat behaviours were cross-referenced with progesterone levels for 40 cows.
Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture research fellow Mark Freeman said that, when on heat, cows walked more and grazed less, as well as exhibited “bullying” behaviour — they tried to mount other cows and let other cows mount them. Sensors could record all of this.
Collars also are being adapted to detect when cows are lame or have diseases such as mastitis.
Dr Timms said that eventually farmers would be able to collect data in real-time and see each cow’s behaviour on a web page.
In a fully robotic dairy, data could be downloaded from the collar when the cow was milked and a swing gate could separate a cow deemed “on heat” .
Dr Timms said the organisations were working on a second-generation cow collar, that was smaller and lower powered. It had solar panels that would last at least seven weeks and sometimes indefinitely.
Other sensors are being used to assist farmers with grass production.
Northwest Tasmania farmer Mike Buckby said sensors in the ground were helping him plan where and when soil nutrients were needed and where he should optimally graze cattle at any time.
SENSORS, cloud data and computing number crunching are tackling a crucial farming question: when is a cow on heat and ready for insemination.
Farmers typically apply paint or stick tokens on the rear of the animal and check if they have been dislodged by other cows.
But IT can offer more accuracy. CSIRO senior research scientist Greg Timms says that by using special sensing collars, technology could detect up to 90 per cent of the instances when a cow was on heat — as opposed to about 50 per cent now.
“We used those trials to come up with those mapping algorithms and we’re getting about 95 per cent accuracy with behaviour classification,” Dr Timms said.
CSIRO and the Tasmanian Institute of Technology began researching the issue in January last year on a farm at Elliott in northwest Tasmania.
Twenty-four cows were fitted with collars with sensors typically found on smartphones — a GPS, an accelerometer for detecting movement, and a magnetometer for detecting direction.
From this, the two organisations created algorithms that mapped recorded data against cow behaviours observed by researchers, including grazing, walking, searching for food and ruminating.
A second two-month trial then took place from October last year, when observed on-heat behaviours were cross-referenced with progesterone levels for 40 cows.
Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture research fellow Mark Freeman said that, when on heat, cows walked more and grazed less, as well as exhibited “bullying” behaviour — they tried to mount other cows and let other cows mount them. Sensors could record all of this.
Collars also are being adapted to detect when cows are lame or have diseases such as mastitis.
Dr Timms said that eventually farmers would be able to collect data in real-time and see each cow’s behaviour on a web page.
In a fully robotic dairy, data could be downloaded from the collar when the cow was milked and a swing gate could separate a cow deemed “on heat” .
Dr Timms said the organisations were working on a second-generation cow collar, that was smaller and lower powered. It had solar panels that would last at least seven weeks and sometimes indefinitely.
Other sensors are being used to assist farmers with grass production.
Northwest Tasmania farmer Mike Buckby said sensors in the ground were helping him plan where and when soil nutrients were needed and where he should optimally graze cattle at any time.