Many moderate to high yielding dairy herds are frustrated as to how poorly the cows milk when they are grazing grass. Modern grassland management can give a consistent supply of high quality grass, in fact the overall quality is comparable to many TMR rations fed over the winter – but the milk yields still disappoint. Housed cattle can give 35-45 litres just from a Total Mixed Ration but the same cows will struggle to top 25 litres a day when grazing even the best grass.
Over the past couple of years, we have been using GPS enabled cow collars and data transmission networks to track where cows are when they are grazing and what they are doing. We have used Machine Learning algorithms to determine which field the cows are grazing and when they move to and from the field for milking. Systems based on the internet Cloud determine whether the cows are grazing or cudding and determine when they would benefit from extra grazing. A trigger signal is then sent back through the network to automatically open a field gate into a new grazing area. We have tested all the above components on a commercial farm.
This autumn we are bidding for governmental funding to develop the project. If successful we will develop and refine the computer algorithms in 2019 and test out the commercial implementation in the following year.
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