Bruce Derksen
A beef producer’s breeding season is critical as it lays the foundation for future success. Efficient and streamlined reproductive systems provide long-term productivity, while imprecise processes lead to mediocrity.
Inputs in heat detection systems grow
Producers using artificial insemination programs must spend a lot of time monitoring individual heat cycles. This allocation takes workers away from other crucial tasks, and while this investment may not significantly affect larger operations with dedicated thermal checking personnel, on smaller farms, workers are often dispersed between livestock production and crop production.
In addition to greater time commitments, workers must have the experience and knowledge to consistently detect signs of heat. This is difficult because the labor shortage in North America is significant.
Vehicle and fuel production also increases expenses during these busy seasons, as trucks and ATVs make twice-daily trips to pastures, increasing fuel use, maintenance requirements and repair costs.
When estrus synchronization protocols are added to the equation, collecting the herd followed by trips through chutes or boxes equipped for breeding becomes demanding. Handling activities, including GnRH and prostaglandin injections, as well as CIDR insertions and removals, add stress to the animals’ immune systems while sapping the energy of their human handlers. Expensive semen can be wasted or misused.
When the organizational pieces fit together, each reproductive approach is precise and efficient, but costs are reduced if an operation has limited time, workers, infrastructure, and vehicles.
Technology helps calm the waters
Tech companies like HerdDogg are trying to make creation processes easier. Its minimum intervention management platform monitors cattle remotely, 24/7, recording minute changes in temperature and movement and providing early warnings about health status and heat schedules.
Bluetooth ear tags equipped with accelerometers and temperature sensors collect and store data for algorithms to correlate heat detection and individual health status.
“In a cow farming environment, machine learning algorithms compare readings from all mature animals and identify changes in heat cycles and health,” says Andrew Uden, CEO of HerdDogg. “This increases accuracy as we are not taking external outliers from one location and applying them to another.”
To simplify the identification process, the ear tags feature bright green LED lights that can be turned on for visibility when within 150 feet of a reader or smartphone. These lights alert producers to females ready for insemination.
Additionally, because the ear tags’ temperature sensors monitor daily diurnal patterns, they flag pattern breaks indicating potential health issues days before clinical signs appear. As with the heat detection process, sick animals are confirmed by turning on the lights on the earrings of those indicated in the alerts.
“Technologies like ours are significantly reducing the time spent and labor required to check for heat, plus less experienced workers can reliably identify females in heat,” says Uden. “Then there is the added bonus of alerts about health status, even before clinical signs appear.”
He believes technologies like HerdDogg’s benefit the entire breeding and reproductive processes, reducing time and labor inputs, fuel and equipment demands, while cutting medication and treatment costs and helping to eliminate guesswork. .
“I think it is imperative that we continue to equip producers in our industry with the technological tools to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively,” says Uden.
