Tech
Health status of cows can now be transmitted via wifi
An Austrian startup, SmaXtec, is placing connected sensors in cows’ stomachs to transmit health data via wifi.
The sensors, which are the size of a hot dog, track minute-by-minute data about the temperature of the cow, the pH of her stomach, movement, and activity, and they identify when the animal is in heat.
With 95 percent accuracy, the device can determine if a cow is pregnant.
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When changes are monitored, the farm staff receives a text update.
The device, which has roughly four years of battery life, is inserted into the first of four stomachs through a cow’s throat using a metal rod and lodges in the rumen, Bloomberg reports.
It can be hard for humans to tell a cow is ill until there are visible signs of sickness, but the sensors can pick up and report changes even before there are physical symptoms.
“It’s easier, after all, to look at the situation from inside the cow than in the lab,” SmaXtec co-founder Stefan Rosenkranz told Bloomberg.
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