Taking farming to a moo frontier

HERDING with a modern twist is being applied in North Clare, with a farmer able to check his herd from anywhere in the world.

HERDING with a modern twist is being applied in North Clare, with a farmer able to check his herd from anywhere in the world.
No more will Albert Moylan from Tubber have to rely on a telephone call or a farm-check by a neighbour as he can now be notified by text if there’s a problem back home. He can then log on to his Moominder.ie account to check on the animals.
Distance is no problem due to the ground-breaking technology developed by Albert, a small farmer and software engineer from Cloonselherne, Tubber.
The Moominder.ie system allows a farmer to be notified via text message of physiological events of each cow in the herd, such as heat detection, calving or mastitis among other problems. It is already attracting global attention.
A sensor is permanently attached to each cow’s ear and measures the animal’s temperature in the same manner as a human’s temperature is taken with a thermometer. The sensor, with a battery life of 10 years, measures the temperature every two minutes, 24-hours a day, 365 days a year and is accurate to 0.1° Fahrenheit.
The sensor communicates with a base station on the farm, which uploads to the Moominder.ie website. These readings are profiled and the farmer is alerted via text message on occasions when a cow is in heat or there is a change in temperature. 
The tag will cost €30 per cow and the base station will be available for €1,000.
Albert has been studying this project over the past two and a half years through universities worldwide and Teagasc reports.
Software for the system is dealt with in Tubber, the electronics work in a specialised location in Limerick and the manufacturing plant will be in Shannon.
Four to five people will be employed full-time in manufacturing the product and it is planned to have the first of the systems on sale by September.