Brand moo technology helps cattle farmers to hit bullseye

IT IS cutting-edge technology found in computer game consoles ordinarily used to navigate spaceships through strange alien worlds or mimic the twists and turns of a speeding sports car.

But in what might be dubbed Sim Farm, pioneering movement-detection software found in the Nintendo Wii is being used by farmers to determine when their herds are ready to breed.

The idea is the brainchild of a Scottish technology company which claims that it will lessen the burden of put-upon farmers and increase their efficiency and milk production.

The Glasgow-based firm, Embedded Technology Solutions (ETS), has already rolled out the technology across scores of farms, and said it has received glowing reports.

The company's groundbreaking cattle-breeding product uses a device called a three-axis accelerometer used in Wii Remotes and the controllers for Sony's PS3 machines in order to detect movement.

ETS puts the technology into a collar round the necks of cows. Known as Silent Herdsman, the device works by monitoring the animals' movement, and determining when they are in heat - cows move around more when they are ready to breed.

To save battery life, the collars remain dormant until they detect a change in the animals' movement patterns, at which point a signal is sent to a computer to alert the farmer.

The signals can also be picked up via mobile apps on smartphones to allow farmers to pick up alerts while working outside on the farm.

ETS claims the Silent Herdsman technology can increase pregnancy success rates for cattle from 10 per cent to over 30 per cent, boosting a farm's efficiency by removing the need to rely on traditional fertility detection methods.

Professor Ivan Andonovic, the co-founder of ETS, said: "We've installed 70 of these already on farms around the UK and we've received feedback from farmers, telling us it's freeing up their time to complete other tasks and making it a much easier job to breed cattle."

Nigel Miller, president of NFU Scotland and a livestock farmer in the Borders, said a number of techniques were used by farmers at present, including painting the tails of cows to see if they have been mounted, but ultimately farmers had to watch cows in person to see if they were in heat, which is very time-consuming.

He said: "The most basic method is observing the behaviour of the animals and seeing if they are following certain patterns, such as mounting.

"But that tends to happen in the evening, so if you want good detection you have to take time out to observe the cows.

"This kind of technology could be used if you have fertility issues with groups of animals where it is difficult to assess them.

"Sometimes cows do not display clear behaviour patterns at certain times of the year, such as December and January, and it would be useful then."

The Silent Herdsman collar can also alert farmers to animals which are unwell, monitoring the position of a cow's head and determining any unusual eating patterns.

It will be demonstrated at a technology showcase at the Scottish Agricultural College, in Edinburgh, next month.