Swiss Cows Send Texts to Announce They’re in Heat

[xchrom]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/02/world/europe/device-sends-message-to-swiss-farmer-when-cow-is-in-heat.html?ref=europe


ZOLLIKOFEN, Switzerland — When Christian Oesch was a boy on his family’s hog farm, cellphones were a thing of the future. Now, Mr. Oesch tends a herd of dairy cattle and carries a smartphone wherever he goes. Occasionally he gets an SMS from one of his cows.

That is because Mr. Oesch, 60, who cares for a herd of 44 Red Holstein and Jersey dairy cows, is helping to test a device that implants sensors in cows to let farmers know when they are in heat. When that is the case, the device sends an SMS to the farmer’s phone. The Swiss do not settle for half measures: the SMS can be in any one of Switzerland’s three main languages — German, French and Italian — plus English or Spanish.

If there is anything to be learned from this project, which will bring the devices to market early next year, it is that Heidi’s world of goats — or cows — placidly grazing in Alpine meadows is gradually becoming the stuff of storybooks.

The electronic heat detector is the brainchild of several professors at a technical college in the nearby Swiss capital of Bern. It fills a market gap, they say, because dairy cows, under growing stress to produce larger quantities of milk, are showing fewer and fewer signs of heat. That makes it harder for Swiss farmers to use traditional visual inspections to know when to bring on the bull or, in about 80 percent of the cases these days, the artificial inseminator.

[fleur-de-lisa]

1. Oh, Sweet Jeebus, the cows are texting now?

In German, French, Italian, English or Spanish !!! How long until they organize a jail break?

[happyslug]

2. This test group includes JERSEY cows, an escape may be on the way....

Jersey are loved for their are massive milk producers, but hated for they are well known escape artists, My father had one and she would climb underneath an electric fence wire (avoiding the wire) to escape. My Sister told me she watch the Jersey did that and then had to chase the Jersey back into the fenced field making sure she had the switch in her hands and the jersey saw it (According to my sister the best way to handle the Jersey was to hit it on the nose with the Switch).

Now, Wikipedia says the Jersey is a "Docile" cow, but I have heard other stories about the breed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_cattle

http://woodsidefarmcreamery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=24&Itemid=22

Now, the other breed, this farmer is using, the Holstein is considered an American Breed of Cattle, decedent from European Frisian and imported into the US between 1869 and 1885 when further imports were prohibited due to an outbreak of foot and Month disease in Europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holstein_cattle

Today, Hostein is used for Cows of American Blood lines, Frisian is used if the cow is of European blood lines. Due to the affect of WWII on farming in Europe US Holsteins were imported back to Europe. The two cows had developed a little bit different so a decision was made to keep them as separate "Breed" thus the dual name for basically the same cow.

95% of all milk produced in the US are from Holsteins, 3.8% from Jerseys, the rest of Milk Production is done by Brown Swiss, Guernsey, Ayrshire, and Milking Shorthorn cows.

[Nihil]

3. Admit it xchrom ...

... this post is just bait for inappropriate comments isn't it?

[xchrom]

4. In E&E? I would never sully the sacred confines

Of E&E that way.

Ok - maybe I would.