How Internet of Things Apply in the Milk Sheep Farm？

More than 6000 dairy sheep in the whole pasture implement and construct radio frequency identification (RFID) electronic identification technology to collect individual information of animals. Data acquisition includes: sheep identification, body weight, feed intake, body condition, milk production, exercise, environmental temperature and humidity, as well as feed storage data of farms. Expert knowledge system is used to judge the physiological state of sheep, adjust feed structure and supply quantity. It can not only meet the needs of data acquisition, management and analysis of independent dairy farms, but also meet the needs of the whole process of distributed data source acquisition, scheduling and production management. It includes automatic ration of sheep, statistical analysis of milk production, individual identification of dairy sheep, epidemic surveillance, prevention and control, and product quality control.

 

Automatic Weighing and Column Separation System

In the dairy goat passage, RFID identification equipment and automatic weighing scale and automatic fencing access control system are installed. The system can realize automatic weighing of each dairy goat, and the weighing information corresponds to the electronic ID number of the dairy goat one by one, and automatically transmits it to the data center through wireless network. Administrators can also set the ID of the goat that needs special care through the system. When the goat passes through the induction recognition system, the control device will alarm. It prompts the administrator and automatically separates it from the sheep. In this way, the administrator or veterinarian can easily find out the sick or need artificial breeding of dairy sheep from the sheep.

 

By monitoring sheep's weight every day, we can know the energy balance of sheep. The time of transition from negative energy balance to positive energy balance in postpartum sheep can be found by observing the weight curve of sheep. The possibility of fertilization pregnancy in positive energy balance is greater than that in negative energy balance. Similarly, a sudden drop in body weight indicates a health problem in dairy sheep.

 

 

Estrus Monitoring System of Dairy Sheep Based on Load Cell

Estrus monitoring system of dairy sheep was established by wireless load cell. The life characteristic sensor for each dairy goat is mainly composed of pedometer and sensor. The pedometer is small, but the durable device has three functions at the same time, namely, identification, sheep activity recording and temperature recording. Studies have shown that the normal estrus of dairy goats is directly manifested by increased activity. The pedometer can record the number of steps taken by dairy goats in each shift, so as to get an average of the normal activity. If the sheep's activity is much higher than the average in a certain shift, the milk may have oestrus. At the same time, if the activity decreases, it indicates that the sheep may have foot and limb disease or digestive disease. The system consists of a pedometer fixed on the leg of a sheep and a sensor fixed on the milking position. The pedometer and the sensor automatically induce each time of milking, thus realizing the automatic identification of the sheep number. At the same time, the sheep's activity information recorded on pedometer is automatically transmitted to the data center through wireless network.

 

This new feeding solution is part of an intelligent ranch. Intelligent pasture is an effective method. It can make use of existing decision-making tools and automation technology to promote the transformation from milking management to global ranch profit management, and improve the quality of goat milk and ranch profit.