Combining animal science with cowboy logic might be one way to find and treat sick cattle sooner.
Feedlots are using a Canadian system to record and analyze every second of an animal’s daily activity, such as movement and feed and water intake.
The goal is to find the sick ones earlier, diagnose the illness and treat with less invasive measures.
“We needed to get to the point where we were actually predicting illness or are least identifying illness at the earliest possible stages or the stage that treatment should occur,” said Alison Sunstrom of Grow Safe Systems.
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The system was designed to measure feed efficiency by monitoring animal activity using radio frequency identification ear tags.
An animal’s tag is scanned the entire time it is at the feed trough, and feed consumption is measured.
The collected data is transferred wirelessly to the feedlot’s computer for analysis.
Smaller studies have focused on early disease detection by measuring feed and water intake and gain and growth.
The information was built into a computerized algorithm that was highly predictive of illness.
A trial at two commercial feedlots started last October to study behaviour and develop disease profiles.
“Given all things that we have known in the past with feed behaviour and water intake, we are finding if you are looking at water intake measurement, this is probably most critical and relates to all sorts of things,” Sunstrom said.
“It is probably the most critical measurement that can be taken to identify disease early.”
The system can identify sick animals four days before clinical signs of disease appear and often up to 24 hours in advance of body temperature change.
Pen checkers, epidemiologists, immunolgists and veterinarians are helping monitor 3,200 animals. Blood is drawn when they arrive and when they leave the feedlot.
Results should be available in June, and the University of Missouri will validate the work.
Grow Safe’s results have coincided with pen checkers’ assessments 25 percent of the time. The rest of the time the data has accurately identified sick animals when the checkers did not.
“I think we’ve got a tool that cowboys can use to make sickness decisions better and we definitely are starting to get some objective measurement,” Sunstrom said.
The data collection has already identified patterns associated with feed and water intake that will take years of further study.
“Some day we will get to the point where we predict specific diseases based on patterning. We see some diseases that have real distinct patterns,” she said.
For example, animals stop or increase drinking depending on the problem. As well, an animal with hardware disease may visit the feed bunk frequently. It wants to eat but cannot.
“As we start collecting this data, we may not know what it means when you throw in the computer science and biological science to it, but we are starting to learn a lot. It is exponential growth,” Sunstrom said.
The system costs $12 per head, but marketing returns are higher because animals require less medication and are healthier.
