Being a 21st-century dairy farmer is no small task. Rising labor shortages, growing herd sizes, and the ever-present need to maintain animal health while keeping operations efficient leave little room for error. But Minnesota farmers have an advantage: homegrown research designed to meet their challenges head-on.
At the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM), researcher Luciano Caixeta is leading a state-funded project focused on putting precision technology to work for dairy farmers. His work is supported by the Rapid Agricultural Response Fund, established by the Minnesota Legislature in 1998 to allow researchers to respond to urgent issues and challenges facing Minnesota's agricultural and natural resource industries.
With a grant for the 2024–25 biennium, Caixeta’s team has been testing whether wearable tech—think Fitbit, but for cows—can help farmers make smarter decisions about when to treat animals, and just as importantly, when not to.
A smarter way to monitor cows
The project uses specialized collars equipped with microphones and movement sensors to track cows’ eating and rumination behaviors, which are key indicators of their metabolic health.
Source : umn.edu