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At Costa View Farm in California, more than 6000 dairy cows are affixed with passive RFID tags with unique ID numbers. The RFID system has greatly shortened the search and management time of dairy cows, increased the number of dairy cows on the farm, and even increased milk production.
The farm uses Valley Agriculture Software’s Animal Recognition System (AES). The system includes 3 handheld RFID readers, headsets worn by staff (used to listen to the beep sound made by the system when a cow is recognized), related software, computers and The Allflex USA semi-bidirectional RFID tag is embedded in a small plastic disc. The tag’s operating frequency is 134.2 kHz, which complies with the ISO 11784 tag data standard and the ISO 11785 tag air interface protocol, and the reading distance can be as long as 100 cm.
Cows with RFID tags and ear tags
Costa View first adopted RFID technology four years ago. At that time, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) began to study the application of this technology to monitor the number of poultry and livestock in the United States in order to quickly and effectively track the source of animal infectious diseases. At that time, many people believed that USDA would obligate farms to adopt an animal identification system. Although the USDA has not issued a relevant government so far, many farms, including Costa View, have decided to use RFID technology to quickly track their livestock.
According to IDTechEx, a British research and analysis company, RFID’s livestock identification and tracking applications are currently the largest and fastest growing RFID market. IDTechEx predicts that global RFID label sales will increase from US$233 million in 2007 to US$29.3 in 2017, of which livestock and food applications will account for 90%. The total value of RFID systems (including tags) for farms, food and animals It will increase the schema from US$531 million in 2007 to US$6.53 billion in 2017.
Ninety-five percent of the 6,800 cattle on Costa View Farm have been affixed with RFID ear tags. Using handheld computers, farm workers can easily identify cattle and formulate corresponding feeding management. As part of the synchronized breeding program, the farm injected about 250 cows, forced them to ovulate every Tuesday and Wednesday, and mate three days later.
Using a handheld reader, workers can quickly identify the cattle to be injected along the cattle corridor.
The software running on the handheld reader is regularly synchronized with the Valley Agriculture animal management software running on the computer. The Valley Agriculture software tracks each cow, injection schedule, veterinarian visit time and conception. When the injection is completed, the system generates an electronic list and downloads it to the handheld. When a worker wears a mobile phone and holds a reader while passing by the herd, the reader scans the ear tag (the reader takes 1.5 seconds to scan the tag and connect it to the software). When the reader finds a certain label on the electronic list, the system will beep and display the corresponding instructions on the handheld.
In addition, the system is also used when the veterinarian goes to the farm to diagnose the pregnancy of the cow; if a cow is found to be pregnant, the information will be input into the handheld and correspond to the cow’s ID number. Before leaving get off work every day, workers download the information from the handheld to their desktop computers. Using Valley Agriculture software, Costa View can generate reports at any time to see which cow has been injected and which cow has conceived.
The use of the RFID system greatly saves the time of cattle searching and positioning. The most important thing is that the RFID system improves productivity. “We adopted this system to save time. The system quickly completes the inspection process of the cows, so that they can leave the cow porch as soon as possible, walk outside, drink water, lie down, etc.; improve the comfort of the cows, thereby increasing the milk The yield.” The farm staff said.
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