Precision livestock technology for disease detection in dairy calves

By Jason Hartschuh, assistant professor, Ohio State University Extension Field Specialist Dairy Management and Precision Livestock

Precision livestock farming is the use of real time monitoring technologies to manage animals by measuring individual data and detecting temporal variability. When it comes to calf care, precision livestock monitoring technologies offer huge potential benefits moving forward. I was at a nutrition conference recently where discussion around the table turned to: can cow people be trained or are those skills that some people are born with? The ability to look at a slight ear droop or head tilt and know that an animal doesn’t feel well has been critical to farms for years. Combining multiple sensors along with machine learning will allow a virtual cow person to watch every calf all day. These technologies have the potential to detect BRD, which clinically or sub clinically affects almost a third of dairy calves and diarrhea, which clinically affects about 21% of pre-weaned dairy calves.… Continue reading