ScanInsights, the winner of the high potential start-up award at Ploughing 2025 is a new technology developed by Dr Dan Ryan, a leading international specialist in reproduction for both dairy and beef cattle.
The new innovation was developed with the aim of revolutionising reproduction technology in cattle to deliver more accurate feedback for farmers with the help of artificial intelligence.
The technology is built on data accumulated through 2.5 million scans and incorporates artificial intelligence to accurately identify the age and sex of pregnancies as well as identifying potential health issues in empty cows.
Dr Dan graduated from UCD with a degree in Animal Science in 1985. From there he travelled to Saudi Arabia to head up a research programme aimed at improving reproduction performance in 25,000 dairy cows.
This was done under the stewardship of Professor Ian Gordon, a pioneer in the area of animal reproduction, who was world renowned for his work in embryo transfer and oestrus synchronisation.
Over the course of five years from 1987-1992 Dan completed a PhD in Baton Rouge and a post-doc in Texas A&M University mastering his skills as a reproduction specialist, all while continuing his work in Saudi Arabia. Upon returning home to Ireland in 1992 he began the process of setting up a dairy reproduction programme in Teagasc Moorepark.
By 1995 he had started his own company ReproDoc Ltd, a scanning service covering farms across Ireland. The new technology ScanInsights, is built on the back of the millions of scans carried out by the team at ReproDoc. The system has been built over the last 14 years with the help of Enterprise Ireland and the engineering department at DCU.
Launched this year, the product was born out of Dr Dan’s frustration at the lack of reliable data being harvested from scanning herds.
The challenge, was the level of consistency between different scanning technicians. This resulted in unreliable feedback for the customer/ farmer.
To solve this issue ReproDoc began using video technology while scanning animals to build a databse of information. With 2.5 million video recordings of every imaginable state of different cows’ reproductive tract and foetus’ there is no situation they haven’t accounted for.
Using artificial intelligence and machine learning this library of videos was used to create a technology that automatically identifies the key features of the foetus and the animal’s uterus when a technician scans a cow.
Now the technician can probe the cow and within seconds the scanning technology will help identify the key metrics of data.
Metrics like the age of the foetus to within three days of the true age between day 30-210, the sex of the foetus between the age of 55-85 days, the previous scan results of that cow and the number of days from when she last calved.
The data from scanning cows has the potential to be more accurate and reliable using ScanInsights according to Dr Dan Ryan. \ Donal O'Leary
The technology will also enable the technician to perform pre-breeding scans and identify health issues in empty cows as well as any health issues or potential deformities that arise in unborn calves.
The goal for Dr Dan is that ScanInsights will also be able to provide a biomarker for wellbeing and survivability of cows.
“The technology is also capable of predicting the reason for a cow being anoestrous or not cycling. Whether that is caused by lameness, mastitis, difficult calvings or metabolic issues”.
“Understanding these reasons will allow us to take preventative action, thus reducing the replacement rates in herds,” he said..
In terms of gathering all of this data, ScanInsights will work to automatically upload the information for each individual animal to the farmers herd profile for ICBF, herdwatch or whatever platform they are using.
The scanning process itself will look slightly different to the traditional method. Before the technician probes the animal, the tag number is inputted on their keypad.
This keypad works in sync with the technician’s mobile phone, held on the toolbelt.
The data is then automatically synched using Bluetooth to the phone containing the ScanInsights app which uploads the scanning data of that animal.
ScanInsights is already live on over 300 ultrasound platforms with the plan to grow the business internationally.
While the process is automated, the scanning technician will still need to be capable of reading scans and probing cows correctly to ensure accuracy.
In other words, an untrained farmer will not be able to purchase the technology and start scanning cows themselves without prior training.
Dr Dan plans to deliver training courses to vets, scanning technicians and interested farmers to educate them so that they can effectively utilise the technology in their business to provide reliable feedback to the customer.
The training course will cost €10,000 plus VAT which will also include the use of the ScanInsights app and technology for one year.
Each year after the training course, the access to the technology will cost €5,000 plus VAT per year.
ScanInsights, the winner of the high potential start-up award at Ploughing 2025 is a new technology developed by Dr Dan Ryan, a leading international specialist in reproduction for both dairy and beef cattle.
The new innovation was developed with the aim of revolutionising reproduction technology in cattle to deliver more accurate feedback for farmers with the help of artificial intelligence.
The technology is built on data accumulated through 2.5 million scans and incorporates artificial intelligence to accurately identify the age and sex of pregnancies as well as identifying potential health issues in empty cows.
Dr Dan graduated from UCD with a degree in Animal Science in 1985. From there he travelled to Saudi Arabia to head up a research programme aimed at improving reproduction performance in 25,000 dairy cows.
This was done under the stewardship of Professor Ian Gordon, a pioneer in the area of animal reproduction, who was world renowned for his work in embryo transfer and oestrus synchronisation.
Over the course of five years from 1987-1992 Dan completed a PhD in Baton Rouge and a post-doc in Texas A&M University mastering his skills as a reproduction specialist, all while continuing his work in Saudi Arabia. Upon returning home to Ireland in 1992 he began the process of setting up a dairy reproduction programme in Teagasc Moorepark.
By 1995 he had started his own company ReproDoc Ltd, a scanning service covering farms across Ireland. The new technology ScanInsights, is built on the back of the millions of scans carried out by the team at ReproDoc. The system has been built over the last 14 years with the help of Enterprise Ireland and the engineering department at DCU.
Launched this year, the product was born out of Dr Dan’s frustration at the lack of reliable data being harvested from scanning herds.
The challenge, was the level of consistency between different scanning technicians. This resulted in unreliable feedback for the customer/ farmer.
To solve this issue ReproDoc began using video technology while scanning animals to build a databse of information. With 2.5 million video recordings of every imaginable state of different cows’ reproductive tract and foetus’ there is no situation they haven’t accounted for.
Using artificial intelligence and machine learning this library of videos was used to create a technology that automatically identifies the key features of the foetus and the animal’s uterus when a technician scans a cow.
Now the technician can probe the cow and within seconds the scanning technology will help identify the key metrics of data.
Metrics like the age of the foetus to within three days of the true age between day 30-210, the sex of the foetus between the age of 55-85 days, the previous scan results of that cow and the number of days from when she last calved.
The data from scanning cows has the potential to be more accurate and reliable using ScanInsights according to Dr Dan Ryan. \ Donal O'Leary
The technology will also enable the technician to perform pre-breeding scans and identify health issues in empty cows as well as any health issues or potential deformities that arise in unborn calves.
The goal for Dr Dan is that ScanInsights will also be able to provide a biomarker for wellbeing and survivability of cows.
“The technology is also capable of predicting the reason for a cow being anoestrous or not cycling. Whether that is caused by lameness, mastitis, difficult calvings or metabolic issues”.
“Understanding these reasons will allow us to take preventative action, thus reducing the replacement rates in herds,” he said..
In terms of gathering all of this data, ScanInsights will work to automatically upload the information for each individual animal to the farmers herd profile for ICBF, herdwatch or whatever platform they are using.
The scanning process itself will look slightly different to the traditional method. Before the technician probes the animal, the tag number is inputted on their keypad.
This keypad works in sync with the technician’s mobile phone, held on the toolbelt.
The data is then automatically synched using Bluetooth to the phone containing the ScanInsights app which uploads the scanning data of that animal.
ScanInsights is already live on over 300 ultrasound platforms with the plan to grow the business internationally.
While the process is automated, the scanning technician will still need to be capable of reading scans and probing cows correctly to ensure accuracy.
In other words, an untrained farmer will not be able to purchase the technology and start scanning cows themselves without prior training.
Dr Dan plans to deliver training courses to vets, scanning technicians and interested farmers to educate them so that they can effectively utilise the technology in their business to provide reliable feedback to the customer.
The training course will cost €10,000 plus VAT which will also include the use of the ScanInsights app and technology for one year.
Each year after the training course, the access to the technology will cost €5,000 plus VAT per year.
SHARING OPTIONS