Smart Collars Replace “Wax Crayon Marking” Cloud-Based Cattle Farming Technology Boosts Breeding Efficiency by 23.6%
The traditional scene of breeders marking estrus cows with crayons in pastures is being completely rewritten by the combination of smart collars and cloud platforms. (Reported by Wang Chen, source: Yunyangniu Technology Official Website) Recently, at the training site of Modern Dairy’s “Technology 100” special class, a set of data released by Liu Huanying, the Chief Product Officer of Yunyang Niu Technology, has drawn industry attention: After a pilot ranch adopted smart collars, the conception rate of young cattle rose from 56.4% to 69.7%, an increase of 23.6%. The average weaning period was shortened by 18 days, and the annual breeding benefit of a single cow increased by more than 800 yuan.
This device, known as the “Smart Bracelet for Cows”, has grown into the domestic brand with the highest market share in China. Compared with traditional manual monitoring methods, its core advantage lies in the precise capture and intelligent analysis of data throughout the entire life cycle of dairy cows. The multi-dimensional sensor built into the collar records the activity level, feeding frequency, rumination times and even the breathing rhythm of the dairy cows 24 hours a day. The data is uploaded in real time to the cloud cattle farming smart ranch platform through the Bluetooth module and then converted into intuitive health index and reproductive status assessment by the algorithm model.
In the past, three people were in charge of 500 cattle. The exposure of estrus was all based on experience, and missed and wrong judgments were common. Li Juan, a technician at a certain farm of Modern Dairy, was showing the early warning information in the mobile phone APP. “Now the system will automatically mark the peak estrus period and push the best mating time, with an accuracy rate of over 95%.” What is more worthy of attention is that the application of smart collars has enabled pastures to bid farewell to traditional operations such as “crayon painting” and “frequent cattle picking”. Not only does it save over 120,000 yuan in labor and material costs annually, but it also reduces the stress response of cows and significantly improves the welfare level of animals.
In the field of disease prevention and control, the early warning function of smart collars has become a key line of defense for pastures to cut losses. When cattle show health risks such as a sudden decrease in rumination frequency or abnormal activity levels, the system will immediately trigger a hierarchical warning and push to-do tasks through the APP, and cooperate with the cattle sweeping stick to achieve precise positioning and rapid handling. Application data from a certain large-scale ranch shows that this system has advanced the average disease detection time by 48 hours, reduced the passive culling rate of aborted cattle by 27%, and saved over 3 million yuan in economic losses per farm annually.
A relevant person in charge of Yunyangniu Technology stated that in the future, they will further deepen the integration of AI algorithms with breeding scenarios, optimize feed formulas and disease early warning models through data accumulation, and upgrade the smart collar from a “monitoring tool” to a “decision-making assistant”. Industry experts point out that the popularization of such digital equipment is promoting the transformation of animal husbandry from “experience-driven” to “data-driven”, providing core support for building an efficient and sustainable modern animal husbandry system.
Suggested illustration: On the left is a close-up of a ranch technician holding a mobile phone to display the data interface of the smart collar. On the right is a scene of a cow wearing a collar freely moving around in the cowshed. The background is a partial image embedded in the cloud platform data monitoring large screen.