Livestock Monitoring Collars
Overview
Livestock Monitoring Collars are rugged GPS + accelerometer + thermometer collars worn by cattle, sheep, goats and dairy cows that continuously stream location, activity, rumination time, heat (oestrus) signals and calving alerts to a herd-management cloud and herdsman mobile app.
Built for dairy, beef, breeding and extensive-grazing operations that want to spot oestrus and calving 12–18 hours earlier, prevent fence-breach losses, raise conception rates 8–20%, and stop the 2 a.m. flashlight check by reducing herd surveillance from manual to ambient.
- GPS geofence — instant push when an animal crosses the paddock boundary, with breadcrumb history
- Activity & rumination — 3-axis accelerometer + ML classifies grazing, walking, lying, ruminating
- Heat (oestrus) detection — mounting / activity-spike model with 93–96% sensitivity
- Calving alert — restlessness + isolation + tail-raise pattern flags impending parturition
How It Works
The diagram above shows the four layers of a Livestock Collar deployment. Hover any module to see the live telemetry it produces.
- Cow + Collar — a 3 cm × 8 cm sealed module on a webbing collar with GPS, IMU (accelerometer + gyro), temperature, ear-tag-readable RFID and LoRa / cellular radio. Solar-trickle option for 12-month service interval.
- Geofence & Health — a paddock map with live animal dots, geofence breach detection, heat-detection counter, calving counter, and herd-level rumination/activity bars feeding an AI behaviour classifier.
- Cloud Dashboard — every herd across every farm rolls up with a 7-day rumination chart, conception-rate trend, breach counter, vet-visit log and exportable EID-linked records for DairyComp 305, Lely T4C, DeLaval DelPro.
- Herdsman & Vet — push and SMS for calving (highest priority), heat (timing-critical), sick animals (low rumination), fence breach (location-critical); one-tap dispatch to AI technician or vet.
A continuous feedback loop pushes retrained behaviour models, refined heat windows, updated geofence shapes and firmware back to the collar — visible as the purple stream along the bottom of the diagram.
Features
- GPS tracking — 3 m position accuracy, breadcrumb history, paddock boundary geofence with hysteresis
- Activity classification — grazing / walking / standing / lying / ruminating / mounting from 25 Hz IMU
- Heat detection — proprietary model on standing-mount frequency & activity spike, 12–18h advance warning
- Calving prediction — restlessness + tail-raise + isolation pattern, ~6h advance warning
- Health early-warning — drop in rumination > 20% flags sub-clinical disease 24–48h before visible
- Hot/cold stress — collar-temperature based heat stress index
- RFID/EID link — collar serial cross-references to your existing ear-tag herd database
- Open integrations — DairyComp 305, Lely T4C, DeLaval DelPro, Allflex SenseHub-compatible export
Use Cases
- Dairy — heat detection for insemination timing, calving alerts, sub-clinical mastitis early warning
- Beef breeding — bull-cow ratio optimisation, heat synchrony, calving paddock supervision
- Feedlot — bovine respiratory disease (BRD) early warning via low rumination + isolation
- Extensive grazing & ranching — anti-rustling geofence, daily muster reduction
- Sheep & goats — flock-level collars, lambing supervision, predator-attack alerts
- Organic / pasture-based dairy — proves grazing time for certification
Specifications
- Position: GPS + GLONASS + Galileo, 3 m CEP, 1-minute fix interval (configurable)
- IMU: 3-axis accel ±16 g, 3-axis gyro, 25 Hz sampling, edge classification
- Temperature: collar-mounted, ±0.5 °C; ear-tag temp option
- Connectivity: LoRaWAN (primary), 4G LTE-M / NB-IoT (cellular variant), Bluetooth for service
- Battery: 12-month service interval on 3.6 V Li-SOCl₂; solar-trickle option extends to 24 months
- Range: LoRa 5–8 km in open pasture; LTE-M wherever there is mobile coverage
- Construction: IP68 sealed potted enclosure, 220 g collar, 36 mm webbing, breakaway buckle
- Operating: −30 to +60 °C, 100% RH tolerant, UV-stable
- Certifications: CE, FCC, RoHS, ICES (Canada); animal-welfare reviewed enclosure shape
- Species & collar form — dairy cattle, beef cattle, sheep/goat (smaller), bull (heavy-duty), feedlot ear-tag variant
- Algorithm pack — basic (GPS + activity), dairy (+ heat + calving), feedlot (+ BRD early warning), pasture (+ predator alert)
- Connectivity — LoRaWAN private gateway, public LoRaWAN, 4G LTE-M, NB-IoT, or hybrid for mixed ranch + barn
- Battery option — 12-month standard, 24-month extended, solar-trickle for permanent ranch use
- Geofence engine — single paddock, rotational grazing (auto-rotate by schedule), free-range (no fence, position-only)
- Herd-management integration — DairyComp 305, Lely T4C, DeLaval DelPro, Allflex SenseHub-compatible, or REST/MQTT to custom ERP
- Branding & collar colour — your farm name laser-engraved, herd-coloured webbing for visual identification at distance
- Service tier — DIY fit, on-farm fitting + training, or managed herd-as-a-service with vet on retainer