Tag Tech
By John Maday
| Thursday, February 12, 2009
Imagine a feedyard or ranch manager of the future, sitting in his office, viewing real-time information about every animal on the premises. His computer display shows him where each animal is, how much time it spends feeding, drinking or resting. Perhaps it tells him the animal’s body temperature, and how much weight it gained since yesterday. Graphic displays illustrate trends in feeding behavior and daily gains, with a sudden change suggesting sickness and a need for early treatment.
In many respects, that future already is here. As the evolution of RFID technology and data analysis take the potential for individual cattle management to new levels.
Depending on any producer’s needs, and how they plan to use animal identification, they have multiple tag options from which to choose. Visual tags remain in wide use across all production stages, offering convenient, cost-effective identification for record keeping, management and marketing. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags help automate the process, providing a direct link between an animal’s ID number and its computerized records.
Kansas State University Extension Beef Specialist Dale Blasi, who also runs the University’s Animal Identification Knowledge Laboratory, says he sees continuing improvement in the “old standby” low-frequency RFID tags.
Blasi says well-established tag companies offer RFID tags using proven designs, materials and electronics – tags that we know will work in the field. Most of the RFID tags available today use low-frequency “passive” radio signals. Passive tags have no power source of their own, but instead respond to a signal from the tag reader and “reflect” information back to the reader.
At a price of around $2 per head, these tags are relatively inexpensive and reliable in field conditions. Simplicity is good, Blasi says. Anytime you add complexity – new functions or features – to something like an ear tag to a live animal you create new opportunities for problems or malfunctions.
The main limitation to LF tags, he adds, is their short read distance of 30 inches or less in most cases. That range, and the passive function, means a reader can detect one tag at a time, and typically just in a chute, alley or some other location that allows close proximity.
That is not to say that new features or advanced functions cannot work, or do not offer potential benefits, but it can take time for technology to evolve to the point that it is practical, reliable and cost-effective for commercial use. Ear tags have potential for transmitting information beyond an animal’s identification. One ID device already seeing some use is a small intra-ruminal bolus for monitoring an animal’s body temperature. Using active RFID technology, the device can alert the computer when an animal’s body temperature increases, and the computer tells the pen rider which animal to pull for treatment.
Several companies are working on animal-ID systems using high-frequency (HF) or ultra-high-frequency (UHF) tags, which Blasi says offer the potential advantage of longer read distance, getting past that 30-inch barrier. Active tags use their own power source, can transmit to readers over a distance of 100 yards or more and the reader can receive information from multiple tags simultaneously.
The challenge, he says, lies in making these systems work in the real-world livestock-production environment. Much of the second-generation hardware, he says, initially was designed for indoor use such as tracking inventory in warehouses. A reliable active tag will need to withstand moisture and changing temperatures, and pack the electronics and power source into a device compact enough for good retention and minimal stress on the animal.
For now, the per-unit cost for alternative frequency tags is higher than for the traditional LF tags, so any viable application will need to generate returns that account for the cost. As with most electronic technology, Blasi expects the cost of these alternative frequency tags to drop considerably over time.
Going active
One organization pursuing the use of active HF technology for cattle management is Southfork Solutions, a joint venture involving consulting veterinarians, cattle feeders and ranchers.
Veterinarian Scott MacGregor says the idea behind Southfork Solutions is technology evolution from a company with people involved in beef cattle production every day, using RFID to improve returns in the feedyard or on the ranch. Managers, he says, know what kinds of information would be useful and which questions to ask, so the group works to define specific needs and builds the technology from there.
Using HF tags in an integrated approach, the system can store and communicate individual animal records while also providing new opportunities to collect real-time information like feeding behavior or inventory oversight to apply toward management decisions.
Five Rivers Cattle Feeding is a partner in the endeavor, and is utilizing it’s industry knowledge and connections, while working closely with the Southfork team to conduct trials, define returns on investment and market opportunities in other sectors of the industry. As the beta tags become available, they will be testing the system, using them in their operations to accelerate analysis, with confidence that there is ample return on investment both in operational efficiencies and value added sectors. MacGregor says the group is working with a major tag company and a leading semi-conductor manufacturer to develop a third-generation HF tag that will offer reliability in the production environment and a cost that’s competitive with current RFID tags. The full system should be ready for commercial use by this fall, he says.
The active tags have a read range that easily covers the size of a feedyard pen. Based on computer commands, the reader activates, or “wakes up” the tags to collect information as needed. At any time, the computer can identify and record which individual animals are in a pen. Thus the database also can track, for example, how much time individual animals spend at the feedbunk and the water trough each day. Because it monitors cattle from a distance, the system does not alter their normal behavior.
MacGregor expects the system to help managers reduce stress and bruising by handling cattle less, manage feedbunks by tracking feeding behavior, monitor cattle for early signs of sickness and keep better track of inventory.
Disease outbreaks, for example, can result in large numbers of sick pulls and significant day-to-day variation in the number of cattle in a pen. A reader in the feed truck could identify which cattle and exactly how many cattle are in a pen, helping assure delivery of the right amount of the right ration. The system also could record the percentage of cattle in a pen that are waiting near the bunk as the feed truck approaches. Ninety percent might suggest they are too hungry, while 5 percent could indicate overfeeding.
From an animal-health standpoint, MacGregor believes remote monitoring of individual cattle behavior, such as time spent at the feedbunk or waterer, could help identify sickness at an early stage for more successful treatment. Timely information could allow pen riders to treat cattle in the pen, eliminating the stress of pulling them for treatment.
Data collection is one thing, MacGregor says, application of that data, with the software doing the “heavy lifting,” will help feedyards manage the variation in cattle performance in real time, pushing the population toward better efficiency and higher returns. Managers will be able to study the data over time, and look for changes, such as in feed intake, sickness or death loss, then correlate records to look for potential causes – natural events such as weather, or management issues such as a change in feed ingredients or health protocols.
Managers also could have new options for conducting in-house research, answering questions of particular interest based on their environment, location or type of cattle. They’ll be able to “mine” existing data to look at things like how timing of feed delivery affects intake, or whether intake differs in pens with north-facing bunks versus south-facing bunks.
MacGregor says the group’s conservative estimates of returns from reduced labor, better bunk management, health and performance add up to around $21 per head, which he says should be many times the cost of operating the system.
Scanned as you drink
Another company, Alberta-based, GrowSafe Systems Inc. is taking a different approach for using RFID for monitoring feedyard cattle. GrowSafe has developed several innovative applications for RFID technology, including the original system for measuring individual feed intake and animal feeding behaviour, which is in wide use in seedstock and bull-test facilities.
Recently, the company introduced a new system for managing feedlot cattle called GrowSafe Beef. Company Vice President Alison Sunstrum says the system is intended to increase profitability through better decision making.
Unlike the feed-intake system, which identifies cattle at the feedbunk, GrowSafe Beef identifies each animal as it drinks from a water tank. It does more than measure how often and for how long the animal drinks, though. For access to water, the animal places its front feet on a scale, and the system identifies the animal while capturing a partial body weight, which studies show correlates well with full body weight. The system is an advanced data acquisition platform that measures ambient temperature, wind speed, humidity and other environmental and biological factors. When equipped with a specialized water trough the system is capable of measuring water intake and individually medicating animals.
The information is continuously transmitted to a computer, which records each animal’s average daily gains. The system analyses individual performance and flags cattle that show a decline in gain or spend less time drinking that research has proven are early signs of sickness. The automated system sprays paint on the backs of “outlier” cattle as they drink, allowing pen riders to identify them easily.
Based on weights, ADG trends, and economics the system identifies cattle to sort off for early marketing, either because they have reached market weights or have reached their performance potential. “We try to get these early loads to a minimum carcass weight,” Sunstrum says. “They are typically Y1s and 2s and have usually reached their genetic potential. The cost of gain has begun to exceed the value of again and its time for market.” The system can improve returns by aiding decisions to market cattle at optimal end points, reduce sickness and death loss, improve quality grades, identify poor performers and reduce labor.
The system currently uses half-duplex low-frequency RFID tags which Sunstrum says provide somewhat better reliability than full-duplex tags in this kind of application but GrowSafe’s data acquisition platform can be adapted to any type of RFID tag. GrowSafe currently is testing a similar system in a ranch setting, to provide individual information on cows and growing calves.
Blasi says the adoption rate for RFID will depend in part on the direction of government programs. The USDA’s National Animal Identification System continues to promote the use of official 840 tags, but the program has met resistance from various industry segments and is, for the most part, voluntary.
It remains to be seen how the program will fare under the new administration. During and after the campaign, President Obama’s spokespeople indicated that improvements in food safety would be a high priority during his administration. Such a program might lead to new traceability requirements, but economic realities could keep the issue on the back burner.
As long as animal ID remains voluntary, Blasi says, adoption of RFID depends on producers’ ability to apply the technology, and the information it generates, toward improving returns.
Tag terms
Active tag: An RFID tag that has a transmitter to send back information, rather than reflecting back a signal from the reader. Requires a battery.
Passive tag: An RFID tag without its own power source and transmitter. When radio waves from the reader reach the chip’s antenna, the tag sends back information stored on the chip.
High-frequency RFID: A signal range from 3 MHz to 30 MHz.
Low-frequency RFID: A signal range from 30 kHz to 300 kHz, typically 125 kHz or 134 kHz.
Full Duplex: A channel capable of transmitting data in both directions at the same time.
Half Duplex: A channel capable of transmitting data in both directions, but not simultaneously.
Source: RFID Journal
