The heat is on
Dairy technology company Moocall has launched a new bull fertility detection device, writes Claire Fox
FARMERS will see a return on their investment within one month.
That’s the verdict from Moocall CEO Emmet Savage on the company’s newly launched product Moocall Heat.
Since 2015 Moocall has sold 35,000 of its calving sensors worldwide.
Its latest product is Moocall HEAT, a heat detection product which harnesses the bull and Mother Nature in order to accurately predict when a cow is in heat.
The product includes a collar that is worn by a bull and Moocall eartags are then attached to all cows and heifers. The collar then uses cow/bull proximity, mounting behaviour and bull activity levels in the field to determine when a cow or a heifer is in heat.
This information is then sent to the farmer by SMS.
According to Mr Savage a missed heat in a dairy cow can cost a farmer more than €200, and therefore thinks the affordable €1,500 price tag of Moocall HEAT will ensure that farmers will see a return on investment within one month of use as heat detection will be more accurate and a herd’s conception rate will increase.
Tail-painting
“60-75pc of all heat happens between 6pm and 6am that means a farmer can miss a heat because they’re not in the yard or they’re asleep.
“Loss of heat is a huge loss to a farmer. When farmers see this product working they’ll see it’s a win-win situation. The herd gets pregnant faster, so I think they’ll see the return on investment in a month,” he said
Mr Savage pointed out that Moocall HEAT offers a solution to “primitive tail-painting of cows” still at work on a lot of dairy farms and is a more affordable solution to costly cow collars that are on the market.
“The tail paint solution is primitive and requires a lot of labour and hours and is in- accurate as it can fail if it becomes rubbed off in the middle of the night or for whatever reason and you don’t know if mounting has occurred,” he said.
“There are also some very expensive solutions where you put a collar on a cow and measure the activity of the cow but this can cost between €10-20,000. Moocall HEAT is affordable and saves the farmer time. It will shake things up for the industry.
Mr Savage added that unlike other products on the market it focuses on the bull which is the “only one in the world who knows best when a cow is in heat”.
“The bull goes to work as nature has designed. It’s based on the bull’s interaction and it tells exactly when heat starts and also provides information on the bull’s fertility.
“If the bull is infertile or sub fertile it will pick this up straight away as up to 20pc of bulls are subfertile. It’s about applying technology to harness what nature intended,” he said.
While for the moment the product only works outside in a field where a bull is accompanied by up to 50 cows, Mr Savage is confident that in the next 12 months the product will be able to work indoors.
For more information, visit www.moocall.com.
WHEN FARMERS SEE THIS PRODUCT THEY WILL SEE IT’S A WIN-WIN SITUATION. THE HERD GETS PREGNANT FASTER.