Heat Detection

The first featured application on the Silent Herdsman™ smart farm decision support platform is state-of-the-art Heat Detection.

Detecting cows in heat (oestrus) is critical for successful modern farm management. Missing or wrongly identifying heat conditions results in significant lost revenue each year through reduced milk production and wasted artificial insemination. As herds increase in size, so does the potential for misdiagnoses of critical cow behaviour such as heat.

The Silent Herdsman Heat Detection application includes the Silent Herdsman decision support platform – the collar for each cow, the wireless base station installed near the milking parlours, the ruggedized personal computer (PC) – and the Heat Detection software application.

Silent Herdsman Heat Detection continuously monitors an individual cow’s activity and automatically detects changes in normal behaviour indicating patterns characteristic of heat (oestrus). The Silent Herdsman Heat Detection application is able to detect the slightest changes in the cow’s normal behavior by collecting movement data on three different axes of motion – an exclusive, patented ETS technology. These detailed data readings are processed on-collar by the Silent Herdsman Artificial Intelligence module.

When the Artificial Intelligence module identifies departures from normal behaviour, an event is stored for download to the central data processing/applications centre. Only meaningful data are downloaded when a cow enters the receiving area of a base station, located either within the holding area, stalls, or within a milking parlour. The alerts indicate that the cow is in heat, allowing the user to schedule that cow for insemination. This selective transmission of only relevant data guarantees an exceptionally long collar battery life.

The Heat Detection application identifies individual cows’ cycles, eliminating the need for costly human observations or the use of labour intensive alternatives such as tail paint or patches – while significantly boosting the percentage of successful identifications of cows in heat. Most importantly the Silent Herdsman Heat Detection application time stamps the instant that the cow enters heat allowing you to treat the cow well within the optimal serving time. Consequently, fertility rates, milk yield and operational efficiencies are maximized – saving significant time and labour, boosting milk yield per cow, and reducing your semen and veterinary service costs.

The Heat Detection application features a comprehensive, very easy-to-use interface that can be delivered to a personal computer as well as to a variety of Web enabled mobile computing devices.

The two-way radio transmission link allows commands to be sent to the individual collars on the cows, allowing over-the-air reprogramming that facilitates the installation of software enhancements without the tedious removal of the individual collar from each cows.