1016 results about "Draft animals" patented technology

A method and apparatus for measuring target animals, including livestock animals and full carcasses, and more specifically livestock animals such as cattle and hogs using a single camera system. More particularly, the method of the invention is directed toward obtaining key measurements of the target animal, such as animal weight, animal hip height and animal hip width.

Methods, apparatuses, non-transitory computer readable storage media, computer systems, networks, and / or systems for monitoring, collection, analysis, use and tracking of personal data, biometric data, medical data, transaction data, electronic payment data, location data and other data to develop a profile for one or more end user, pet, livestock, dairy cows, cattle or other animal using radio and other frequency tags and relaying data from EMFID tag interactions to a database that can be accessed by members of a network, and further including the use of unmanned surveillance vehicles, satellites or hand-held devices for monitoring, collection, and / or analysis of EMFID data.

This invention addresses the problem of how to separately regulate the food intake of multiple animals using the same feeder with the goal of maintaining healthy weight for all. The invention provides a means to prevent access to the feeder by animals that have exceeded their allowance (as dictated by programmable profiles) as well as preventing unauthorized animals (such as excluded pets, wild animals or animals on a special diet). The methods can be applied to a broad range of feeders: for domestic pets, livestock, zoo animals and other managed animals. The invention is particularly well suited to dry food gravity feeders. The invention details electronic and electro-mechanical embodiments of devices intended for the described purpose.

A portable livestock incubating device is provided formed of a rectangular container having and incubating volume forming an incubating chamber defined by the zone within the incubating volume. Each each end wall further includes an access door hingedly attached to an upper portion above a clean out door for providing ingress and egress of livestock. Each access door has an exhaust vent located at an upper portion whereby heated air, generated via an electric heater within said the incubating chamber exhausts therethrough. A base with wheels mounted thereon for facilitating transportation of the portable livestock incubating device.

The invention relates to a livestock carcass skin marking device, which includes a tagging unit and a code-spurting unit. The tagging unit reads the livestock skin marking data stored locally or on aserver and generates a corresponding jet printing image. The code-spurting unit includes an ink nozzle, which jets the jet printing image to the livestock carcass skin. By adopting the technical scheme, code-spurting on livestock carcass skin, especially on live pig carcass skin can be carried out automatically, the code-spurting content can be customizable dynamically, the code-spurting process is fast, the code-spurting image is eye-catching, and the whole equipment cost is low. As two-dimensional codes can be jet printed, the livestock carcass circulation can be completely traceable, and the food safety can be guaranteed.

An early alert system and a related method for livestock disease detection are disclosed. In one embodiment of the invention, an activity measurement zone (AMZ) is defined near an incentive device (e.g. food or water dispensing system) with an RFID tag reader, and an animal's entrance into or out of the AMZ is tracked and counted with an RFID tag attached to the animal. If the animals' activity relative to the AMZ drops to an alarmingly low level (e.g. dropping below an alert trigger point) over a period of time, then a user of the alert system is informed of a potential health problem with the animal and may also be encouraged to inspect the animal in person for further determination of its current health and potential medical issues.

A method and apparatus for producing bacteria-free iodine-species-containing drinking water for farm animals under continuous dynamic water flow, comprising dissolving solid iodine into a first water flow to produce a saturated iodine species-containing aqueous solution at a pre-selected temperature; blending the saturated solution with a second water flow to produce a diluted iodine species bacterium-free aqueous solution; and providing the diluted solution as drinking water to the animals. Preferably, the iodine is dissolved in the first water flow to provide a saturated iodine species at a pre-selected temperature at a known concentration, which saturated solution is then blended into a mean water flow. The continuous flow of iodine species-containing water is fed to a farm animal drinking water distribution network with reduced risk of back-contamination by bacteria-containing water through the network. Other uses of the iodinated water are as a disinfectant, for example, in the food processing industry; fruit, vegetable and fish preservation; industrial, commercial cooling tower waters, sewage and waste water treatment; and as a nutrient as an iodine source for humans, livestock, fish and plants.

The invention relates to a satellite location technique, which aims at solving the defect of high management difficulty which is caused by few herdsmen and huge herds and the defect of grass resource destroy which is caused by over grazing in the prior art, and provides a fixed-point grazing method which comprises the following steps: S1, a GPS signal is received in real time and current position information is generated; S2, whether the current position is located in a predefined graze region is determined, if no, an alarming indication is sent out. The invention further provides a fixed-point grazing device in which the method is applied. The technical proposal of the invention has the advantages that: by setting the position information of graze regions in the fixed-point grazing device and combining with the GPS location information, livestock can be automatically limited in a predefined graze region, which not only saves the labor required for grazing and simplifies herd management, but also effectively avoids the grass resource destroy which is caused by over-grazing by simply modifying the graze region information to change different graze regions.

The present invention is directed to methods and systems for improving the efficiency of livestock production using genetic information obtained from the animal. The methods of the invention comprise obtaining a genetic sample from an animal or embryo, determining the genotype of the animal or embryo with respect to specific quality traits, grouping animals with like genotypes, and optionally, further sub-grouping animals based on like phenotypes. Based on the genotype, an animal is treated in a particular way. For example, uniform feeding regimens are designed for a particular group so as to maximize feed efficiencies and accurately predict slaughter times among like animals possessing a desired quality trait. Such methods include obtaining and maintaining the genetic data obtained from each animal, and optionally other data relating to the animal's health, condition or parentage, or to its herd, and providing this data to others through systems that are web-based, contained in a database, or attached to the animal itself such as by an implanted microchip.

A system for weighing a plurality of quadruped animals is for use in a pen confining the animals. The pen has at least first and second segregated spaces with a first one-way chute allowing animal passage from the second space to the first space. A weighing station is located within a passage having an entrance and an exit, and that allows animal passage from the first area to the second area. The weighing station includes a weighing platform within the passage over which an animal must pass when passing from the first to the second space. The weighing platform has inlet and exit scales that support the weighing platform adjacent to inlet and exit ends thereof, and provides inlet and exit weight signals. A controller receives the inlet and exit weight signals and uses them in an iterative process to determine the presence of a single animal on the weighing platform. Once that determination is made, the sum of the inlet and exit weight values is very likely to accurately provide the animal weight. The controller may also use the inlet and exit weight signals to control closing of an inlet gate to bar more than one animal at a time from the weighing platform. An animal sorting system can easily incorporate this weighing system to provide more accurate sorting.

A machine including a container fitted with a base that extends between lateral walls and end walls. The base partially covers (i) a mixing rotor and (ii) a feed auger which moves products in the skip either in a closed circuit or in a circuit towards a distributing chute. A transfer screw is mounted on top of the feed auger. The transfer screw can include cutting members in the form of sectioning parts. The sectioning parts co-operate with teeth which are disposed on a beam. The teeth can be positioned as necessary either on a beam located in the container or on one or more beams located on the lateral wall. Similarly, the feed auger can also include sectioning parts that co-operate with teeth if required.

A vertical auger mixer for blending feed ingredients for farm animals has a frusto-conical shaped tub having an open top, a closed bottom and a motor-driven auger journaled for rotation about a vertical axis in the closed bottom. The tub has a discharge opening in a sidewall thereof, the opening having a door movable between an open and closed position. The tub is mounted on a base frame with plural load cells operatively disposed between the base frame and the tub such that the contents of the tub can be weighed and the tub can be rotated to fit installation requirements. An L-shaped tub reinforcing band is welded about the tub surrounding its upper rim in a way that inhibits unwanted collection of feed materials.

A system and method of tracking animal livestock using electronic frequency signal transmitters and receivers is herein presented. The system involves electronic tags attached to the bodies of livestock. The tags transmit a signal which conveys the location or other pertinent information regarding the status of the animal. The signals are picked up by a receiver attached to a stationary platform, or located in a vehicle, or in a portable hand held receiver device. The information transmitted can be used to locate a specific animal or can be used to monitor the status and condition of the animal. The device contains several modes which minimize power consumption and maximize power supply lifetime.

A system for monitoring the welfare of livestock in a shed, the system including a plurality of sensors for measuring ambient conditions in the shed; a robot, adapted to move through the shed; a processing engine and a memory operatively associated with the processing engine. The robot includes at least two cameras, one of which is a thermal camera. The processing engine is operatively associated with the robot and the plurality of sensors for receiving data recorded by the robot and the plurality of sensors, the recorded data including measurements of ambient conditions in the shed; and images from the at two cameras.

A flexible boot (10) for use with livestock comprising a flat sole (13) made of a relatively harder material and a relatively resilient and extensible wall (11) having the shape of a truncated cone. The wall (11) includes a fastening element comprising (a) an outer fastenable surface and (b) one or more flexible non extensible straps (14,15) attached at one end to the wall (11) and having a reversible hook and eye fastener elements capable of forming a reversible attachment along their length to the wall (11) so that the boot (10) may be fitted over a hoof. In use the boot (10) forms a substantially sealed cavity (19) around the hoof and medication may be introduced into the cavity (19).

An agricultural data collection framework is provided in a system and method for tracking and managing livestock, and for analyzing animal conditions such as health, growth, nutrition, and behavior. The framework uses ultra-high frequency interrogation of RFID tags to collect individual animal data across multiple geographical locations, and incorporates artificial intelligence techniques to develop machine learning base models for statistical process controls around each animal for evaluating the animal condition. The framework provides a determination of normality at an individual animal basis or for a specific location, and generates alerts, predictions, and a targeted processing or application schedule for prioritizing and delivering resources when intervention is needed.

There is disclosed an improved shock absorbing, light-weight, thermally insulative orthotic pad designed for use in a pad and boot assembly for hoofed livestock. The pad is comprised of a mixture of flexible spheroids and elastomeric materials. In a preferred embodiment, elastomeric material generally is more concentrated at the top portion of the pad, and spheroids dispersed in a matrix of elastomeric material concentrated at the bottom section of the pad. The spheroids have a lower density than the elastomeric materials and possess better thermally insulative properties, and in a particularly preferred embodiment, at least some of the spheroids are comprised of closed-cell polypropylene foam. A method of making the light weight pad is also disclosed

The invention includes a location tracking device in an RFID environment, a system and method for tracking tag objects. Preferred embodiments include location tracking for livestock and a system and method for categorizing animal health. The location tracking device is an active or passive RFID device having a low power, long range transceiver for tracking the location and movement of the tag animal. The RFID device further includes a temperature reader circuit that induces an activation voltage on an inductive coupled temperature sensor having an LC circuit. The activation voltage is selectively cycled on and off to measure the decay of the LC circuit by its resonant frequency. Changes in capacitance of the LC circuit are converted to temperature readings thereby providing temperature monitoring of the animal. The system and method includes logic in the form of predetermined movement categories which indicate whether an animal may be potentially sick or healthy. The movement categories include frequency of movement and distances traveled by a monitored animal.

The invention discloses an animal husbandry positioning system and a positioning correction method based on an unmanned plane and an RFID. The animal husbandry positioning system comprises a data collection function module for collecting livestock geographical position information data, a data analysis processing function module and a data display function module for enabling a user to check the geographical position points of livestock. Compared with an existing GPS device, the cost is lowered by 60%.

The invention discloses an automatic livestock phenotypic body size data measuring method based on three-dimensional point cloud, and the method comprises the following steps: obtaining different local point clouds of livestock, and fusing a plurality of local point clouds into a global point cloud; fitting a central axis plane for the point cloud above the livestock to obtain a ridge contour lineof the livestock, positioning a body length starting point and a body length ending point of the livestock on the ridge contour line, and performing integration to obtain the body surface length of the livestock; acquiring ground plane point cloud data according to the ridge contour line of the livestock, performing least square fitting on the plane to obtain a ground plane equation, and solvingthe body height of the livestock; projecting the upper point cloud of the livestock to an XOY plane to obtain a discrete curve graph of point cloud number distribution, finding out the position of thechest width in the discrete curve graph, and further solving the chest width length of the livestock; selecting a slice of a to-be-measured girth, establishing a polar coordinate system by adopting the slice, drawing the polar coordinate system on a rectangular coordinate system, fitting a curve, and solving the to-be-measured girth by utilizing a polar coordinate arc length integral formula.

A system for managing an integrated supply chain of livestock, such as beef cattle, utilizes a networked system solution for interacting various supply chain entities via the Internet. Various livestock producers, feed yards, packers, retailers, and vendors to the livestock industry are interconnected to communicate, manage, market, and transact the livestock from birth to consumer sales at the retail level. Producers are enabled to provide source verification of their livestock to enhance the integrity of the system, and prequalify livestock for value-added retail programs. Retailers are enabled to make real-time changes to characteristics of known future supply through interactions with the decision makers during the production process.

The invention provides a management system for grazing by unmanned aerial vehicles. The management system comprises the unmanned aerial vehicles, a hangar, an electronic fence and a control station, wherein information is wirelessly transmitted between the control station and the unmanned aerial vehicles; the electronic fence defines a general grazing region; a main control system is arranged on a driving unmanned aerial vehicle; an auxiliary control system is arranged on a tracking unmanned aerial vehicle; a central control unit of the main control system is electrically connected with a main data acquisition unit; the main data acquisition unit is used for acquiring livestock position information and body temperature information in the grazing process and storing acquired information in a main memory unit; the main memory unit is connected with the control station; a timing unit is connected with an analytical unit; the analytical unit is used for calling setting time of the timing unit and setting time of the main memory unit, comparing the setting time and transmitting a comparison signal to a main driving unit; a main flying unit is used for controlling the driving unmanned aerial vehicle to fly; autonomous grazing of the unmanned aerial vehicles can be realized in an automatic mode and the operation of farm households is not needed; moreover, health monitoring of livestock can be realized.

A litter processing system is provided implementing one or more robotic vehicles to process livestock litter, detect conditions of the litter with a plurality of sensors, and treat the litter based upon data collected by the sensors. The vehicles may include processors and software that control vehicle tasks. The vehicle's onboard software may be controlled by a server having an instance of the software thereby controlling operation of the vehicles and collecting sensor data from the vehicles via a wireless network.

The invention belongs to the field of livestock breeding technology, facilities and equipment, and particularly relates to an establishing method of a controllable breeding fermentation bed with an air cushion layer and a fermentation bed. The establishing method is characterized in that a complete-area air cushion layer is arranged on the lower part of a fermentation cushion layer or a partial-area air cushion layer is arranged in a livestock centralized excretion area, natural circulation of air is maintained inside the air cushion layer or a mechanical air supply system is arranged inside the air cushion layer, the air cushion layer sequentially consists of an anti-seepage terrace layer (6), an elevated layer (5), a net layer (4) and a gradation material layer (3) from bottom to top, the bottom of the elevated layer (5) is provided with a ventilation pipe (7), or the air cushion layer sequentially consists of an anti-seepage terrace layer (6) and a gradation material layer (3) from bottom to top, the bottom of the gradation material layer (3) is provided with a horizontal open pore ventilation pipe (18), and the ventilation pipe (7) and the open pore ventilation pipe (18) are connected with a fan (10) of the mechanical air supply system. Due to the adoption of the establishing method and the fermentation bed, the microorganism waste digestion atmosphere in the livestock fermentation bed can be controlled in an omnibearing manner, the fermentation bed can stay at an appropriate aerobic state, the adaptability of the fermentation bed to the breeding condition and the breeding load can be enhanced, the working state of the fermentation bed can be optimized, and the service life of the fermentation bed can be prolonged.

A reconstruction method provided by the invention is configured to divide the whole contour of a livestock into a plurality of body parts, build a standard template for each body part, obtain livestock contour point cloud data through the soft laser technology which is safe for eyes, fuse the point cloud data and the standard template and obtain a reconstructed livestock body contour. The contour obtained by the method provided by the invention is more accurate with no need for complex algorithm for extraction and calculation, and cannot be interfered or influenced by extraneous environment so as to rapidly generate a complete three-dimensional contour.

The invention belongs to the technical field of the electronic communication. The technical problems that the existing livestock management is bad and the livestock is easy to lose or be stolen are solved. The intelligent grazing management system based on the Beidou short message comprises a region positioning base station, boundary positioning base stations, a positioning terminal, a backgroundmanagement center and a Beidou communication terminal; the region positioning base station is located at the center of a grazing region of a pasture and sends a wireless signal to all positioning terminals in the region, wherein the signal covers the grazing region of the pasture; the boundary positioning base stations are uniformly distributed at the pasture boundary and used for positioning livestock boundary and communicating with the background management system; the positioning terminal is respectively connected with the region positioning base station and the boundary positioning base stations in a wireless way; the background management center receives the information sent in a Beidou short message way, and monitoring and managing the livestock location; the alarm information is pushed to the grazing personnel through the Beidou short message way; and the Beidou communication terminal is used for receiving the alarm information pushed by the background management center.

The invention discloses an intelligent monitoring device of an animal ear tag. The intelligent monitoring device of the animal ear tag comprises an electronic monitoring device arranged at the front end of one of handles and a calipers folding induction device arranged on the handle and positioned near a rotating shaft. The invention further discloses an intelligent monitoring system of the animalear tag. The intelligent monitoring system of the animal ear tag comprises the intelligent monitoring device, as well as mobile communication equipment and a cloud server which communicate with eachother. The invention further discloses a monitoring method adopting the intelligent monitoring device of the animal ear tag. Judgment on whether to complete tag wearing is conducted through synchronization of an action signal catcher of the electronic monitoring device and the calipers folding induction device. The electronic monitor of the action signal catcher and the calipers folding inductiondevice are integrated on the calipers and are mutually connected, so that the functions of automatically determining that the ear tag is truly worn on earlaps of the animal and obtaining accurate tagwearing time are achieved, the false tag wearing phenomenon is avoided and the identity of the animal can be deeply traced.

A livestock chute for confining and controlling an animal including a pair of spaced apart side frames connected by support members to provide an elongated space into which the animal may be driven, a tailgate near the rear end of said space and a head gate assembly supported near a front end of the space which includes an expandable and contractible opening which, when expanded, allows the head of the animal to extend therethrough and, when contracted, surrounds the neck of the animal to prevent removal of said animal's head therefrom. A gate carriage is mounted near the top of the side frame for longitudinal movement relative thereto and from which the head gate assembly is suspended for movement between a terminal position near the front of the space and selected positions nearer the rear of said space. Preferred embodiments include a squeeze assembly for engagement with the hip area of the animal.