The GEA group, based in Düsseldorf in Germany, focuses on process technology and is one of the largest suppliers to the food processing industry. The company is the developer of CowScout, now available worldwide, including South Africa.
CowScout is an electronic monitoring system that uses electronic tags to
keep track of a cow’s movements and behavioural patterns. This in turn can reduce labour, increase pregnancy rates and limit the need for hormone treatments.
CowScout provides two types of tag – one for the leg and the other for the neck of the animal. Physical activity by the
cow is continuously transmitted via ultra-high frequency (UHF) wireless signals to a long-range antenna. This feeds the data to a receiver, giving you real-time information regardless of where you are. The system can use the Internet, a smartphone or text messaging. Data is also transmitted to the CowScout herd database for processing.
A major advantage of UHF is that wireless signals are not affected by dirt, manure or infrastructure such as walls – all of which are common problems with infrared devices.
Leg tag
The leg tag indicates how mobile a cow is, as it detects how much time it spends lying down or walking. It can even count the number of steps taken each day, notifying you if there’s a major change in the animal’s activity. This can help you to treat health issues timeously.
Neck tag
The neck tag monitors your cow’s eating times and immediately notifies you if these deviate from the cow’s normal activities. The system produces simple, easily interpreted displays of eating times and lactation phases, analysing an animal’s activity in two-hour periods. Individual activity in one period is compared with that in the same period over the preceding days to develop a baseline, making oestrus detection easier.
The benefits to the farmer are increased revenue, reduced reproduction costs, and cows that live longer and are healthier.
The CowScout system requires minimal maintenance and there are no expensive batteries to replace.
Visit the GEA group on facebook.com/GEAFarming.
