Technology brings us new possibilities every day improving our lives significantly. And even the simple and, let’s be honest, ancient process of milking a cow went through a lot of changes due to technological evolution. The dairy industry constantly implements new solutions into the workflow making it more eco-friendly and efficient. And these innovations are rather interesting. So let’s take a look at them.
Fitness tracker for the cow
Sounds fascinating, doesn’t it? The wearable technology is now available for cows too. A fitness tracker for bovine-kind looks like a collar and is able to gather a lot of important and useful data. It tracks the level of health, the number of steps taken during the day and habits of the animal. Last but not least – it can even read the level of happiness of the cow. How awesome is that?
All the gathered data is sent to the chosen device and can be studied later. With these records, it is easy to detect illnesses on the early stage, prevent them and share the information with the veterinarian if needed. Also, using this data the owner of the farm can estimate chances of a successful pregnancy and boost the milk productivity of the cow.
More control with drones
The dairy industry came up with the way to use drones for the benefit of the farm. With this technology, it is simple to monitor where the herd is, find vulnerabilities or areas that needed to be repaired, check if crops have enough moisture. And all this observance can be done without the need to leave your chair. Drones allow monitoring every single thing on the farm. Also, sometimes this technology may even save you from thieves.
How well do you know your cows?
Technology has created a facial recognition for cows. It uses the information like patterns the pelt has, measurements of the face and other details that allow telling one cow from another. It helps to understand the nuances of the behaviour and prevent possible issues. For example, it helps to detect if some cows are not walking regularly or miss feeds. Also, with this technology, you can figure out the productivity of every one of them tracking the correlation between the amount of food they eat and the amount of milk they give.
Improve the milking process using robots
Just as everything in our world, cows like consistency. They like when they eat when they get milked every day at the same time. If the consistency takes place, cows give more milk and become more content overall. With robotic milking technology, you can be sure they get milked according to the schedule. Sure, the technology exists since the early nineties. But today it is much more advanced, thus, boosts the production significantly.
It allows cows to create their own milking schedule. When they need to be milked, they go to the milking pen. The robotic equipment detects the udder and starts working. With this technology, cows don’t experience any milking-related stress and, therefore, become more productive.
Cows like their backs getting scratched too
Because who doesn’t like it? That’s why brushes for bovine-kind were invented. Even though technology is extremely simple, it benefits the farm a lot. First of all, cows really like being brushed. This procedure makes them more content and happy. But also brushing stimulates the blood circulation improving the health of the animal.
With all these amazing technologies we can only wonder what is waiting for us in the future. But at this moment we already can make farms more productive using different gadgets.
