HerdWhistle Feedlot is an RFID monitoring system featuring an early warning system to manage the health and well-being of your livestock. The system reliably alerts you to indicators of illness up to 7 days before visible symptoms can be seen. Monitoring your animals 24/7, the system provides traceability for all time on lot activity, matching animal history from squeeze to sell. Affordability and easy installation makes HerdWhistle Feedlot viable to add to any feedlot. Improve traceability and profitability while providing the best care for your livestock.
Industry standard RFID tags are attached to the animal's ear and are used to track each time they eat and drink on the feedlot.
Sensors are placed inside the feed bunk and above the water trough to detect the ear tag's as the animal eats and drinks.
The RFID ear tag is activated at the feed bunk and water trough when the animal's head crosses the sensor.
Data on when each animal is feeding or not is sent to a software system to be analyzed for signs of illness, injury, and distress.
Alerts for animals suspected to be ill, injured, or in distress are sent to designated smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers.
HerdWhistle Feedlot uses RFID technology to monitor animals 24/7. The RFID equipment has reading zones that are calibrated to only collect data when the animals are using the feed bunk and water bowl.
RFID, or Radio Frequency Identification, is a method of capturing digital data from a physical RFID tag. It is similar to the barcodes on products you buy at a grocery store. A device captures data from the tag or label and stores it in a database. The benefit of RFID is that the tag data can be read no matter its alignment to the sensor. With a barcode, it must align with its scanner. This makes it an ideal solution for the unpredictable movements and orientations of animals.
The HerdWhistle Feedlot system has two main components. First is the ear tag. Industry standard animal ear tags are attached to the animal. The ear tag has an RFID chip built inside of it, which is read by the next component: the sensor. An RFID sensor is installed across the length of the feed bunks and above each water trough. The sensors are active 24/7 to capture data from the ear tags as animals visit the feed bunk and water trough.
Both the water sensor and feed sensor have clear zones where the tags can be detected. The reading zone on the feed bunk is contained within the bunk itself. The ear tag is only picked up when the animal’s head crosses the barrier of the trough to grab feed. The water sensor aims downwards overtop of the water trough. It covers the width and length of the trough so that ear tags are only read when an animal moves its head over the trough to drink.
Reading zones in the feed bunk and water trough allow HerdWhistle Feedlot to track every time an animal eats or drinks. It can detect subclinical signs of illness for better treatments. It can determine which animals are the most efficient in terms of weight gain. The feed sensor can even determine when the feed truck made its deliveries for the day. Installing across the entire feedlot gives operators the traceability of where each animal is on any given day.
