Unlike a child, calves will not come up and tell you they’re not feeling well. Instead, producers often find out much later when performance is already lost. Whether it’s the fact cattle conceal disease better than their caretakers find it, or the methods we use to detect disease, our traditional system can be flawed. Enter a product from Merck Animal Health designed to detect disease sooner and give cattlemen another tool in their arsenal of animal care technology: SenseHub^® Feedlot.

Technology and labor needs

There are several challenges regarding disease detection in a postweaning beef calf. SenseHub technology was designed to improve upon some of the deficiencies cattlemen deal with regularly. The objectives are twofold: to better identify animals who are ill, and to serve users by improving efficiency.

“Our goal is to find sick animals, and generally we are looking for bovine respiratory disease (BRD). It’s not exclusive for BRD, but due to prevalence, that is what we generally find,” says Jason Nickell, manager of professional services for Merck Animal Health. “But we also want to find those animals earlier in the disease phase and identify animals that would have gone undiagnosed in the past simply because they’re so good at concealing disease.”

One benefit of SenseHub comes in the form of increased efficiency, Nickell shares. Labor challenges are something the majority of modern-day production systems face at some point in time. From a labor standpoint, SenseHub isn’t intended to replace labor or labor needs, but rather take a lot of the guesswork out of day-to-day activities.

How it works

Designed as a wearable health monitor and indicator, the SenseHub platform is anchored around an ear tag that captures body temperature and animal activity 24/7. While cattle previously may have been checked several times a day, SenseHub takes the guesswork out of management, Nickell says. Multiple times a day, SenseHub pushes information to its cloud platform, and uses artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to analyze that data. After the data have been reviewed, the producer receives an email containing ID numbers and pen locations of animals needing to be checked.

Another valuable feature is a flashing light that activates on each tag when an animal is flagged by the system. Though SenseHub cannot diagnose what is wrong with each animal, Nickell says, identifying outliers compared to the rest of the cattle within a group is valuable when time and labor resources may be stretched thin.

Seen in action

While this information might sound impressive, SenseHub is backing up its claims with a number of systems commercially using the technology. Those users are anywhere from traditional feedyards to backgrounders and seedstock producers who are developing their own bull evaluations.

“The field data that we have observed has tied in well to the research data that we’ve observed in the past. Our research data indicates that ultimately, due to a combination of reduced mortality and reduced chronic disease, we can keep more animals in the system compared to traditional disease detection methods,” Nickell says. “From a production and feedlot standpoint, our data would suggest that because you can keep more animals on feed, there are more sellable pounds. That has equated to an additional 40 pounds (lb.) of live weight, or 25 pounds of hot carcass weight, per animal.”

Where to begin

If identifying under-the-weather cattle and maximizing labor are something you want to invest in, Nickell says Merck is committed to making the transition a success.

“We will take a lot of time to speak with that producer, get some boots on the ground and make sure their system is a good match for the technology. Depending on their labor situation and management system, SenseHub may not always be a good fit. We don't want to provide a bad customer experience if we can help it.”

Merck has a team solely dedicated to customer success that comes in after the sale and trains the producer on how to use the system, how to interpret the information coming through and who tweaks the system along the way to better fit each operation’s cattle. Once set up, the team would then monitor data day in and day out from afar to ensure the customer is having a good experience.

Editor’s Note: The information above is summarized from the Aug. 30, 2023, episode of  Angus at Work. To access the full episode, including further information on SenseHub Feedlot, check out “Maximizing Labor with SenseHub Feedlot featuring Jason Nickell” from our  podcast playlist. [Lead photo by Shauna Hermel.]

Angus Beef Bulletin EXTRA, Vol. 16, No. 9-A