Ranch management from "relying on experience" to "looking at data" - RFID smart farms know that "cow

Realistic picture of Nanjing Weigang Dairy Smart Farm Dairy Hall. Courtesy of Correspondent Zhang Shuai

Nanjing Daily/Zijinshan Journalist Wang Huaiyan

Correspondent Liu Liangfeng and Zhang Shuai

Wearing the exclusive "ID card", eating the "nutritious meal" carefully prepared by the nutritionist, and the "cloud" butler's 24-hour "cold welcome"...... An excellent case in the province's agricultural digital construction - Nanjing Weigang Dairy Smart Ranch, tens of thousands of cows from Xuyi, Sihong and Rizhao pastures wear RFID electronic ear tags, RFID smart neck rings, coupled with supporting precision feeding systems, production measurement systems and other smart management systems, Live a "digital" life, and realize the data, precision and intelligent management of the ranch.

At 6:00 a.m. on the 25th, just before dawn, Nanjing Weigang Dairy Co., Ltd. was located in the milk hall of the smart ranch in Rizhao, Shandong Province. With the elegant and soothing piano music, a group of black and white cows slowly entered the farm. After the electronic ear tag was identified with a beep, the cows boarded the milking table. With the start of the rotary milking machine, the automatic milking of the new day began. During the milking process, the ecological data such as milk yield, flow rate and conductivity of cows are uploaded to the intelligent management system of the dairy in real time, and finally merged into the big data platform of the smart ranch. After finishing milking, these cows, under the guidance of intelligent automatic clustering gate, divide cows in different lactation stages and health conditions into different cow houses. There, nutritionists prepared nutritious breakfast carefully according to the health data and production status of cows. "No. 3 Cattle House is a postpartum cow, which needs careful care. We evaluate their health status according to rumination, exercise and milk production data every day, and prepare a nutritionally balanced 'monthly meal' for them." Li Tao, production director, introduced.

Precise clustering is the first step to improve the management level of the ranch. Cows in different growth cycles have different health inspection, milking, oestrus monitoring and breeding needs, and must be cared for separately. However, it is not easy to "find cattle". Take Rizhao Pasture as an example. There are 11000 Holstein cows in the Pasture, all of which are black and white, with high similarity. How can we find the target cows and achieve clustering?

First of all, each cow is marked with an electronic ear tag, which is equivalent to a special "ID card" for each cow. With it, you can easily find cows by strolling around the cowshed with identification equipment. In addition, key data such as growth, disease and yield of each cow throughout its life cycle are recorded under this ID, which is the basis for intelligent management of pasture.

It is not enough to have an electronic ear tag. Li Tao said: "There are tens of thousands of cows in the base. How to master the health status and oestrus status of these cows is a difficult problem. It is not realistic to rely on manpower." Therefore, the pasture has installed an intelligent neck ring for cows. It not only has the positioning function, so that staff can quickly find the target cows, but also can monitor the activity, respiration, rumination and other conditions of cows in real time, and accurately master the health, movement and emotional status of cows. On this basis, with the help of precision feeding system, oestrus monitoring system, yield measurement system and other intelligent systems, the farm technicians can make the backup cows in the growing period grow more healthily and make the cows in the lactating period produce milk healthily and happily.

Smart pasture makes milk production more "cow like" - statistics show that in 2018, the average annual milk output of each cow in Weigang Dairy was 9.6 tons, which has now increased to 11 tons. "In the past, managing farms relied on experience. Now, managing farms depends on data. Through the collection, analysis and prediction of various data, farm management has become easier and more intelligent." Li Tao said with a smile.