The ‘cow collars’ from Afimilk are part of global trend towards ‘connected cows’ and will help in monitoring the health, wellbeing and fertility of cows
LIC to market Afimilk cow collars in New Zealand. (Credit: LIC.)
LIC, a New Zealand headquartered agri-tech cooperative, has formed a distribution partnership with Afimilk to market its cow collars in New Zealand.
As per Afimilk, the AfiCollar is worn around the neck and will collect data on animal health, wellbeing and fertility. The cow collars are part of a global trend towards ‘connected cows’.
Afimilk is a producer of cow behaviour sensors, farm management software and milk meters and supplies cow collars internationally. Earlier this year, the two organisations were in discussions about a potential investment by LIC in Afimilk, which did not proceed.
AfiCollar is a cow neck collar which uses an advanced-yet easy-to-use technology to assist dairy farmers in monitoring rumination, eating and motion to enhance and improve their health, fertility and nutrition of their cows.
The cow collar is claimed to give accurate heat detection and monitor animal health. They are motion-sensitive and have a pedometer that records each step taken by a cow.
Any changes to normal movement or eating patterns are sent to the farmer as an alert through the AFiFarm software and a mobile app (Afi2Go Pro).
LIC CEO Wayne McNee said: “We are working to build an integrated, collaborative technology ecosystem that makes it as easy as possible for farmers to adopt new technologies. Farmers need to be able to choose the technology and products that are best suited to them.
“Our role is to ensure that proven technology can integrate with LIC’s existing systems and herd management software into the future.
“The AfiCollars are among the best in the world and, we believe, well suited to meet the unique challenges of New Zealand’s pastoral dairy environment.
“Our proven work in genomics, reproduction and animal health is enabling farmers to be more efficient and their herds to be more productive each year. Cow behavioural monitoring devices like the AfiCollar will deliver complementary on farm benefits such as more accurate heat detection and animal health and welfare monitoring.”
Afimilk CEO Yuval Rachmilevitz said: “We share a combined commitment to enabling farmers to continually improve on-farm productivity through new technology and it is exciting to be further enabling this in New Zealand.”