A ‘FIT-BIT’ for cattle has been trialled on a property near Townsville with the technology set to revolutionise how farmers keep track of their livestock.
The fitness tracker, which has been developed by the CSIRO and agtech start-up company Ceres Tag, is effectively an ear tag fitted with a GPS that is able to relay data back to the farmers.
The technology producers similar data to what is delivered by humans wearing smart watches.
It enables farmers to track information including where their herds graze, if an animal has escaped or been stolen, and even unusual movements which could indicate an animal is giving birth or sick.
The aim is to save farmers time and money compared to the costs of manually tracking their herds using vehicles or aircraft.
The smart ear tag was successfully trialled on 100 cattle at CSIRO’s Lansdown Research Station near Townsville last week.
Ceres Tag CEO David Smith said the tag allow farmers to locate and monitor their animals in a way that could reduce operating costs.
“The tag is GPS-enabled, allowing farmers to track the location of individual animals remotely, via Internet of Things (IoT) capability,” Mr Smith said.
Using on-board accelerometers, the tag can send out alerts for unusual activity patterns which could be triggered by events like theft and other disturbances of the herd.
CSIRO Group Leader Ed Charmley said it had taken less than a year for the tag to be developed.
“Aussie farmers need every bit of help they can get right now so we are pleased it has taken less than a year for this technology to move from the research phase into development for a real-world trial on cattle,” Dr Charmley said.
“Our focus for future iterations is to create a smaller and lighter tag, as well as added functionality such as a temperature sensor, which could alert farmers to illnesses at an earlier stage.”
Ceres Tag will be on show at the digital forum at MLA’s Red Meat 2018 event in Canberra on November 22 and 23 and at the Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture in Brisbane the following week.