Cow 'Fitbit' helps pastoralists care for newborn calves

When Kim Forrester started School of the Air at his family's station in Western Australia's remote Gascoyne, his only means of communication was a pedal radio.

Today he live streams water tank levels from his paddocks on his mobile phone and checks cattle data on his computer.

"Before was either on the motorbike or in the aeroplane or in a motor car and driving vast distances," Mr Forrester said.

"Now we've got a pretty good handle on it from an iPad."

Mr Forrester runs 10,000 head of cattle over more than 300,000 hectares at Winning Station, near Coral Bay, about 1,100 kilometres north of Perth.

His job is still driven by manual labour, but as Australia's agriculture industry rapidly digitises, he said embracing technology was critical.

"You're trying to operate with the least amount of labour you possibly can, purely to survive," he said.

"No doubt with AI coming along, the next 10 years will be an amazing development.

AgTech divide

The tech developments are helping tackle some of the biggest challenges in the agriculture industry.

While southern dairy farms were early adopters, challenges around distance and infrastructure made things more challenging across northern Australia.

Northern Territory Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (NTDAF) livestock team leader Christie Pearson said the scale of operations was vastly different.

"If you think about a standard property down south, you've probably got less than a couple of hundred head, or you've got animals that you can physically see in the paddock," Ms Pearson said.

"Up here we're still having contracting camps out, we're still mustering, we're still using helicopters.

'Fitbits' help track losses

At Manbulloo Station just outside Katherine, Ms Pearson observes the movements of 140 cows wearing technology similar to the Fitbit activity monitors used to track exercise in humans.

She is collecting data on maternal behaviours and herd interactions to better understand calf loss. 

The herd is sporting ear tags and GPS collars that track movement and behaviours, including time spent ruminating and grazing, herd interactions, and cows' responses to calf loss.

Ms Pearson said they had noticed each cow's maternal behaviours were different.

"There's some cows that leave their calves out in the paddock, and they walk into water for up to a week after calving before they'll bring their calf into the water," she said.

"Then there's some calves who are born right near the water."

These tracking device trials are taking place across two northern pastoral properties as part of Central Queensland (CQ) University's "Mooternal" project.

Senior researcher Anita Chang has been monitoring 100 cows at Belmont Station in Rockhampton for more than a year, with surprising results.

"Last year at Belmont we found that one calf was cross-suckling with two separate cows, so there were two cows that were equally invested in the calf's survival," Dr Chang said.

"In some instances it's as much about the calf as it is about the cow, so the calf is the one pursuing different nursing opportunities."

The trials will continue for a further three years.

Back on Winning Station, Kim Forrester believes easy access to technology could be game-changing.

"Surviving calves on the ground is our biggest profit driver," Mr Forrester said.

"One death of a calf means that cow hasn't produced a calf that year, so you're running that cow, but no income off it."