SHEEP COLLAR TRAILS AT COOLINDOWN FARMS
As a farmer of sheep for over 20 years, we have constantly tried to reduce the mortality rates, particularly in lambing ewes and post-weaners. Adopting best practice management tools to prevent mortality has helped improve these rates, however there is still room for further improvement. Opportunities in using sensors and movement technologies we believe could be the next management tool to take welfare and lamb survival to the next level.
OUR VISION FOR IOT & FARMING
To be running a fully automated commercial farm that demonstrates the benefits of embracing Ag Tech,
and assists others to develop and/or implement these technologies.
CORE PURPOSE
To discover the many, and widely varied, ways that Ag Tech can assist farmers to be more sufficient, sustainable & viable...
as we all face future changes of Industry adaption, cultural pressure and climate evolution.
This trial aims to investigate and address a number of national livestock priorities including:
Animal welfare; livestock health, progress & general well-being.
Improved lamb survival and livestock birth rate sustainability.
Implementing novel technology as a commercial farm management tool.
PROJECT COMPOSITION
Coolindown Farms is the first in Australia to use IoT devices to track animal welfare using the Sigfox network. IoT devices use radio frequency to transmit data to a tower, which is then relayed to a phone in real time - via either a mobile or wifi network. Our collars send us a reading every 30 minutes, enabling us to track our livestock at any time of the day. Our Sheep Collar Trials consist of three 'Trial Stages' - all of which are repeated over 3 years.
Our main aims & objectives include:
OUR MAIN AIMS & OBJECTIVES:
Establish that the technology can be successfully run in a remote and isolated rural location.
Identify any barriers or challenges that occur during the implementation of the technology.
Establish the technology does as it claims.
Establish if there are any adverse effects on the animals.
Identify benefits to day-to-day running of enterprise.
IoT TRIALS REPEATED FOR THREE YEARS
Research & discovery project linking animal welfare, livestock monitoring & IOT technology
IoT & EWE
Collars will be fitted to 100 pregnant ewes with another 100 ewes being used as a control group. During lambing, I will follow the data provided by the collars to see if I can identify ewes going into lamb and any that are in distress during the birthing process and see what kind of assistance can be provided. This will allow us to build algorithms to see if in future years we can detect lambing by behaviours. This first trial is Belinda Lay's AgriFutures Rural Women's Award Project.
TECH EWE UP
This trial comes as an extension from the learnings of the Agrifutures - IOT & Ewe trial.
Over the next 3 years we will be using devices and sensors to collect data on joining dates, gestation lengths, preg scanning and the difference between scanned and what hits the ground. We will be following them through to marking numbers and finally weaning numbers. Other points of interest include growth rates between muelsed and unmuelsed lambs as we phase that out of our enterprise and maternal instincts of ewes. Being spread over 3 years we have the opportunity to look at female offspring and compare gestation lengths and maternal instinct - is it genetic? is it environmental or is it learnt?
Ongoing updates & progress observations throughout the trial period can be found on Belinda Lay's Blog.
Stay tuned for other exciting developments here on Coolindown Farms