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SACO Systems' smart cow tag

The agricultural industry is a major contributor to South Africa's economy. Faced with increased costs, fluctuating markets, variable weather and high crime rates, it is essential for cattle farmers to optimise their production and remain well-informed and in full control of their operations. The concept of Farm IT - an advanced system which allows the livestock farming community to collate accurate information regarding their livestock - is built around a live radio frequency identification (RFID) tag developed by SACO Systems.

Because farmers find it difficult, if not impossible, to manually write down or key in tag numbers while weighing, dipping or inoculating livestock, it is either done infrequently or not at all. The result is a lack of sufficient scientific data on which to base decisions regarding food conversion, the efficient use of expensive vaccines and so on. The advent of the SACO livestock tag, developed in South Africa for local conditions, allows farmers to easily track their livestock and access essential data.

"Our Dairy Farm Management System brings automated production and improved efficiency to the farmer, allowing the production and health of the herd to be accurately monitored, and enhancing productivity by providing individual animals with feed supplements specifically calculated for them," explains Des Oliver of SACO Systems.

SACO's fully fledged Dairy System consists of an RFID ear-tag, a handheld terminal to read and write information to and from the tag and an antenna system at the dairy entrance. The system logs the cow onto the PC, determines the feed mix required for each individual animal and delivers it to the milking bay where she will be milked. A milk flow meter then measures and logs the individual milk production of each cow.

The system also incorporates an integrated scale which weighs the cow in motion, as it walks across to be milked. This allows condition monitoring data to be available as and when it is required. In addition, further information captured to manage the feed requirements per individual cow includes: details regarding calving, drying up, artificial insemination (AI), diseases, pregnancy, terminations, milking and other treatments.

RFID long range readers can be used to ensure that all non-dry and healthy cows are being regularly milked and reports confirming this can be drawn. The feeding system, which delivers a specific feed mix per cow, is dependent on the cow's stage in the lactation cycle, its milk production (averaged over the last seven days), its age and its weight. Manual inputs can be used to override default selections for specific cows or groups of cows.

Users can also view and print reports such as the master file report, tag audit by date report and exception reports such as cow presence discrepancies. The milk volume can be viewed per date and/or when milk production per volume is greater or less than expected.

According to Oliver, SACO Systems offers customised Tag, Track and Trace solutions tailor-made to client requirements and implementing technology that best suits the individual application.

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