Cambridge location technology specialist Ubisense has helped develop a system that it is hoped could revolutionise the livestock industry.

Ubisense's real time location system is being used by Danish company SmarterFarming in its 'Cowdetect' product. The system monitors the movement and behaviour of cows in real-time to a positional accuracy of 15 cm and has now been installed in three Danish dairy farms, tracking over 1000 cows every second.

"Knowing the precise real-time location of animals will revolutionise the industry", said Don Broom, the world's first professor of animal welfare, based at the University of Cambridge. 

"For years farm managers and vets have needed to know more precisely the patterns of movement that will allow them to correlate behavior with health and it appears that Smarterfarming and Ubisense have made that possible".
 
The Danish science office, AgroTech has calculated that the value of this location information could be as high as 355 Euros per animal for a lactating cow if it is acted upon.

One example cited by Smarterfarming is an eating problem in cows known as ketoses. Normally 3.6 days before the disease can be seen, the cow's eating time decreases significantly. 

This change in behavior can automatically be detected by the real-time location system and the dairy manager can be alerted.