Automated heat detection technology

Company CEO Emmet Savage is confident the Moocall Heat will be a game-changer.

“Other devices work on cow activity, measuring it in different ways. This product has the potential to be more accurate. There’s a bull in this instance – we’re simply piggybacking on nature.”

The Moocall Heat includes a collar and 50 RFID ear tags. The concept is simple – the collar goes on a vasectomised bull or stock bull and the tag goes on the cow. When the bull spends a lot of time in the vicinity of a certain animal and mounts her, the collar picks up on this. The product’s algorithm can decipher when a standing heat begins and ends.

The device works in tandem with a smartphone application. All a farm’s breeding information is stored on this application, with alerts when a cow comes into and goes out of heat so that AI timing can be improved. An SMS message is also sent. Repeat due dates are flagged, so on given days you can focus on certain animals.

The app also gives us details on bull health, virility, mobility and fertility.

The 50 RFID tags are designed to last the lifetime of the animal, but cannot be reused in different animals. Once purchased, a barcode on the back of each tag is scanned into the application and then the farmer inputs the related cow’s tag number.

The collar is designed to be bull proof.

“We learned from the initial Moocall calving monitors and have applied the principles here. The collar is virtually indestructible,” Emmet said.

The collar has a battery life of 60 days. It has a hard, reinforced outer casing with flexible joints and an adjustable strap.

The product (one collar and 50 tags) costs €1,220 excluding VAT.

Additional packs of 25 tags will cost €90 excluding VAT and after one year’s use there is an annual charge of €285 excluding VAT.

However, there is a discount to this annual charge if a farmer owns multiple collars or a Moocall calving sensor.

The company claims that there is a 98% success rate in extensive testing to date.

The Agricultural Trust, publisher of the Irish Farmers Journal, has a equity shareholding in Moocall.

Comment

If this new product works without any issues, Emmet Savage’s ‘game-changer’ comment won’t be an exaggeration. The potential reduction in labour around breeding time for a farmer using the Moocall Heat successfully is massive. The appetite for something like this is evident in the fact that the company had taken over 500 orders for it before commercial manufacturing had even begun. For me a huge plus with the product is the price point. OK, €1,220 (excl VAT) is not exactly cheap but relative to other heat detection products out there it represents value. This has been one of the big reasons for the success of the calving sensor, its attractive price point. The product has a huge role on part-time farms looking to use AI, but will also be popular on farms with stock bulls, helping with accuracy around calving dates and, crucially, making sure a bull is doing what he should do. More and more farmers are reporting bull fertility issues to us. The fact that a bull is required for the product to work is potentially a negative aspect of the product.

Many will argue that if a bull is needed, heat detection is unnecessary overkill. But, for those who understand the value of top genetics and AI, the need for a vasectomised bull won’t put them off.

Heat detection is one of the main functions of the Smaxtec bolus system. Manufactured in Austria, Irish distributor and Animal Health Monitoring Ltd owner Alan Heaney, says it has “something for all sizes and types of farmers”.

“Neck collars are the main mode of heat detection technology in dairy herds at the moment but this new electronic bolus is very affordable,” he said.

“At the moment, a Heatime collar is around €110 excluding VAT and its corresponding base station is €3,500. Our boluses are €70-80 and the base station is €1,500. There’s obviously more discount with scale and volume,” he added,

Accelerometer

The basic bolus is administered orally into the animal and remains in the stomach indefinitely. It contains an accelerometer to measure activity, a thermometer to record temperature changes and the premium bolus can measure pH, though it retails at €350 per unit.

“The premium bolus would go into one or two animals in a feedlot or high-yielding dairy system to measure feed conversion efficiency and give a farmer an idea of how a broad group was doing from a digestive point of view,” Alan said.

The bolus stores real-time data and when the animals come within 25 metres of the base station, which would be installed for example at a milking parlour entrance on a dairy farm, the data is uploaded. The company is also working on a portable station with a solar panel that can be left in the vicinity of a drinking trough on suckler farms to detect heats outside. The same system would work for dairy heifers on an outfarm.

The accelerometer measures a cow’s initial activity for seven days and then bases heats on changes to the baseline. The thermometer function will also pick up on the sudden drop in body temperature eight to 16 hours pre-calving and alert the farmer. Temperature will also spike if the animal has a fever or is suffering from conditions such as milk fever, grass tetany or mastitis. Water intake too will affect the temperature in the animal’s stomach and if this deviates from normal the farmer will receive an alert. A drop in water intake might mean an animal is unwell.

“The device will also pick up silent heats,” Alan said.

It works in conjunction with a smartphone app, on which a herd’s full details are uploaded. When the product is purchased, technicians will upload all the herds’ details and assist with bolus administration as well as sitting down with a buyer and getting him or her up to speed with all of the product’s functions. The company has recently hired two full-time employees to look after sales and support, Vincent Tennanty and Annie Galligan.

Fail safe

There’s a fail-safe mechanism being rolled out this month whereby the farmer can tell the application if a long walk, hoof pairing or TB test is imminent and the device won’t act on these as abnormal bouts of activity.

In terms of retrieving boluses, there have been no issues reported thus far from meat factories about recovering them on the line and returning them to farmers.

The boluses can be recycled and have a lifespan of five to six years and the system comes with a five-year warranty.

“Our only potential problem is where animals are sold live so there can be no retrieval, but it hasn’t been flagged yet. We are in the early stages,” Alan said.

Comment

Time will tell whether boluses like this replace the traditional collars. There are definite benefits – heat detection, health monitoring, calving alerts, water intake monitoring, etc. We are killing many birds with one stone. Alan was keen to stress the success of the system is with the operator, who must engage with the technology and keep the data (calving dates, AI dates etc.) accurate and up to date to ensure the algorithms are always learning and adjusting to each individual cow’s needs.

There are up to 50 farms in Ireland using the product at the moment and if these farmers stay happy, it will definitely gather momentum. Farmers will be hesitant to trust something that they can’t see or feel, but Alan is confident in the product and adamant that his team will provide any support necessary. He told me an anecdote about how a new customer rang him rubbishing the device after his application alerted him to four bulling cows that were showing no physical signs. Initially Alan was confused as to what had malfunctioned only to receive a second phone call some time later saying that the farmer’s AI technician confirmed that the four cows where in fact in heat.