13 May 2020

2 minute read

Timely detection and quick recovery of sick cows is key for animal health, animal welfare and reduction of antibiotics. When using Ida, the intelligent dairy assistant, the recovery time of cows can be reduced by more than half. This was shown in a scientific field study. It is all about detecting the early signs of sickness.

Ida, developed by agtech company Connecterra, uses a sensor, cloud computing, integration of data sources and artificial intelligence for early detection of cow diseases such as ketosis, mastitis or digestive problems. Preventing that cows become clinically ill will reduce the number of days the cows need to be treated with veterinary medicine, such as antibiotics. Ida is a second pair of eyes on the farm, spotting early signs of anomalies in cow behaviour, which are often the first signs of sickness.

The field trial was done within the context of the Horizon2020 Internet for Food and Farm project and supported by Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands

“It is the first time that such a field trial has been done to test the use of sensor technology in relation to treatment days. The latest results over 2019 are impressive and confirm what we have seen in the first year (2018) of the trial”, explains Niels Rutten, researcher at Connecterra and coordinator of the trial.

2 years of valuable health data

To test the value of Ida as a true digital assistant and detector of sick cows on farms, Connecterra has been running a scientific field trial since January 2018 on two commercial dairy farms (Belgium and the Netherlands), each having a herd size of 100 milking cows.

Click here to read more about the trial.