Wearable Technology is Not Just for People
Farm Journal’s Smart Farming Week is an annual week-long emphasis on innovation in agriculture. The goal is to encourage you to explore and prioritize the technology, tools and practices that will help you farm smarter. Innovation today ensures an efficient, productive and sustainable tomorrow.
Something wasn't right. Milk was down. Feed intake plummeted. Standing time increased. The cows stood at the bunk looking listless, yet they refused to eat, sometimes for days at a time. Activity systems across the board were showing a rapid drop in rumination.
These were the conditions that we and our partnering consultants experienced at several of our client's farms for the last month and a half.
Something was critically wrong.
- But what was causing it?
- Why were several herds down thousands of lbs of milk?
We've come a long way from the days of, "Help, I've fallen and can't get up" commercials.
From the NBA to Michael Phelps to your local PTA director everyone wants the latest wearable. No longer a simple button, the term “wearables” refers to any device we can sport, from patches to smart watches that can be attached to our bodies to monitor and manage our performance.
Becoming More Precise
As wearables have grown in popularity, the science has evolved as well. By integrating complex biosensors into our lives, we are now capable of knowing more about our bodies than ever!
The beauty of this is that our dairy researchers are catching up and integrating these innovations into our industry. Building their own unique dairy versions of these technologies.
The biosensors housed within these dairy specific wearable devices allow us to continually monitor a range of biometrics such as rumination, activity, bunk time, water intake, rest time, temperature, gps location in the pen, and even stress hormone levels. We are just beginning to see the application of these devices in the dairy industry.
For example, research at Cornell by McArt and Seely has suggested that rumination could be used as a substitute for much more expensive and invasive blood testing. This would allow for accurate, economic detection of subclinical milk fever. Yielding more targeted treatment and preventing secondary transition cow diseases such as ketosis, metritis, or DA's as well as decreased milk production.
Diving Deeper into Herd Health
For the first time in history, we have the ability to intervene upon disease not just at a sub-clinical (before observation is possible) level but at the very moment of it's inciting event.
This was what they hoped to do in this presenting case by IDing the very inciting event that had derailed these dairies.
By this point they had eliminated all the usual suspects, mycotoxins, starch levels, fiber digestibility etc. They were convinced it was a palatability issue. But what product could the culprit be? With such complex rations, highly variable protein and mineral mixes how would the team ever be able to know they picked the right product?
To aid this analysis the team of highly qualified veterinarians and nutrition professionals would have to trust these wearables. They would have to trust those "earrings and necklaces" to tell us when they were on the right track.
So, they did just that. Product by product the ration was adjusted to eliminate potential causes. After the change, they waited with bated breath and watched intakes, feeding time and rumination rates almost hourly. Hoping for that bump that suggested they had found the offender.
It was not a quick or flawless process. It was filled with frustration by owners and consultants alike. More than one hard conversation was had.
Several weeks after the inciting event, after three or four iterations of product removals, the source was found. Suddenly, intakes went up, rumination jumped almost 20%, and slowly the milk came back as well.
All this was aided by a wearable "necklace or earring" placed on a cow. The ability to ID the smallest ingredient, the smallest inciting change, and intervene, hopefully, before it becomes a bigger issue. That's the power of biometrics. That's the future of our industry.
For more on Smart Farming, read:
- Digester Success: It’s All in the Details
- Uniting Technology with the Youngest Herd Members on Your Farm
- He Started Out as a Milker Nearly 30 Years Ago. Now, He's the Manager and a Leader in Technology at Wisconsin's Largest Family-Owned Dairy
- Facility Focus: 4 Tips to Manage Ventilation During the Off-Season
- Beef-on-Dairy: Why Feedlots Crave This Important Information
