While many take the form of a cattle feeders, a recent release at the Irish Ploughing Event takes the form of a cattle drinker to entice animals into or onto the system.
Reap Interactive, founded by Kieran Supple, uses his BovinePlus weight-recording system to give farmers daily reports of the grade and fat score of their cattle, as well as their weight and average daily gain as the cattle use the built-in drinker.
Based at Boyle, County Roscommon, chief executive Supple said they’ve been testing the market with the concept for the past two years ago, reviewing feedback and incorporating ideas, before releasing the commercial version that is currently available.
To explain the technology, as the animal enters the unit, they stand on a platform that captures their weight, records water consumption and reads their ear tag. The system moves away from a typical herd average basis, rather looking at individual animals and unit economics. Interestingly, only two of the animal’s four legs need to be on the weighbridge when the weight is being recorded.
Supple explains: “The system allows users to learn about the individual animal, so is able to build what we call a behavioural analysis for that animal. After four days of use, we know exactly how that animal looks and behaves.”
As well as giving the accurate weight for the animal, it can also alert the farmer of impending health issues with an animal, driven by data that identifies a change in its daily behavioural pattern or weight loss, raising flags on the software interface to say that animal has an issue.
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Supple also explained that the drinker is the incentive for the cattle to regularly use the machine, often visiting multiple times each day, so delivering a regular stream of information.
“Measuring the quantity of water consumed is becoming increasingly important,” says Kieran. “A lot of research is being [done] in that area, with early signs showing the more you can get animals drinking, the better their metabolic systems become at converting food.”
Capable of working either indoors or outdoors, in the case of the former, it is simply plugged into the mains. When used in the paddock, it is powered by a solar panel and “connected” via an integral SIM card. Data is passed to the cloud, then automatically transferred to the app on a user’s mobile device.
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