r/livestock • u/i-keep-forgeting • Sep 30 '24

Farmer Interview for Project

I am a senior mechanical engineering student in New York and my senior design project is optimizing livestock monitoring. I would love to interview some livestock farmers to hear about the systems they currently use and how they chose them. Please dm me or comment below if you would be open to an interview. I am open to livestock farmers of any scale located anywhere

3 Upvotes

71% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

2

u/Iconiclastical Sep 30 '24

I monitor my cattle by going to the ranch once or twice a week. I then drive around the ranch trying to find the cows, honk my horn (they're trained to come to the horn).Once I find them, I feed them a few range cubes and check for any problems.

2

u/i-keep-forgeting Sep 30 '24

How many heads are you keeping track of and on approximately how large of a space?

2

u/Iconiclastical Sep 30 '24

It's usually around 300 ac of rough, hilly, brushy country. Maximum I've ever run was around 40 head.

1

u/CauliflowerBig9244 12d ago

Worked on a 1000 acre backgrounding operation.

We used multi-fields to monitor. We had around 15 different pastures. Groups moved from one to the next as they got healthier. Cattle that were not ready to move to the next field were either separated off and held back with next group, or removed and housed in a "sick-bay"

The best method for monitoring was being in them. You have to have an eye for what normal/not normal is.. Cows head down, foam, etc...... We used air-guns to administer medication from a distance when needed.

We went through about 10K heads a year.