Both dystocia and stillbirth have a significant impact on animal productivity and the profitability of the farm. The Belgian Blue breed is commonly used in Belgium and due to feto-maternal disproportions, as happen in other double muscled breeds, assisted parturitions and caesareans are frequent. Therefore, forecasting the moment of calving is very important for farmers to plan the assistance to the cow in such important event, to reduce mortality and reproductive problems and to increase productivity and profitability of the farm.
The most common commercial devices used for that purpose are CowsOnWeb and Vel'Phone®, both consisting in the continuous monitoring of the vaginal temperature which is used to predict calving within one or two days, but with a different design, as shown in the following picture.
Vaginal thermometer from CowsOnWeb and the temperature graph
Equipment from Vel'Phone® (Medria) and the temperature graph
The thermometers are introduced in the vagina from the cow some days before the expected birth of the calf (Medria around 8 days before and Cows-On-Web 4 to 21 days before). A few days before calving the body temperature slowly rise it will then drop below 39-degree centigrade, therefore, at this moment, the farmer knows that calving will occur within 24 - 48 hours which allows to intervention at the right moment in the event of complications. The information is sent to the producer in a text format, but the data can also be observed in the form of graphs, as shown in the figures.
Medria® is a company based in the West of France, which produces and sells sensors and associated software for livestock use, as the Vel'Phone® system for calving prediction used in beef and dairy herds. This device system uses the LoRa (short for long range) technology, offering a long range of communication between the base and sensors up to 1 km. After being placed in the cow the system measure the temperature every minute, and issues an alert to the farmer's mobile phone informing about the future calving. Posteriorly, a message is sent to the farmer to inform the expulsion of the thermometer with the water sack, at this time the farmer knows that calving will take place about 1 or 2 hours, which gives him time to get organized if the animal needs assistance.
Medria video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goNM7W68cW0
Cows-On-Web is a Belgium company, which sells birth alarm made by a sensor which measures the temperature of the cow every 10 minutes and sends the measured values to the server, and this data can be observed from the farmer PC, tablet or smartphone. Through the temperature graphs of the animal, it is possible to follow if the calving is close. Furthermore, if a cow gets a fever or if the probe is no longer attached to the cow, the farmer can be also notified by SMS or mail. The probe that measures the temperature is very compact and does not cause any hindrance for the cow. Only the narrow temperature sensor is in the vagina of the animal so that cows do not suffer from it at all, which guarantees that no vaginal inflammations can occur even during prolonged use.
The main benefits verified with the system use such Medria® and Cows-On-Web were the reduction in mortality and the less labor time by the farmer, providing improvement in time-management. Because this advantage, the two system presented here are most used by the bigger beef farmers in Belgium. And according to the BovINE Network Manager from Belgium, around 50% of the farmers are using this system nowadays. " The Medria system has problems with the production of the sensors" , was the last signal of that company.