The small device, known as the imPulse Una, is an infrasound to ultrasound AI stethoscope.

“The technology was invented by Level 42 AI in the Silicon Valley in California,” said Yaogeng Lei, research scientist at the Technology Access Centre for Livestock Production at Olds College.

In 2022, Level 42 AI opened their Canadian branch in Edmonton at the University of Alberta. They named it Vibrome Canada and decided it would hold all the company’s intellectual properties for animal research.

After Olds College connected with Vibrome Canada, the two struck a deal to collaborate on trialling the technology for sheep.

“The first time when they came over to visit us and they showed us the technology, it was very cool for us to look at,” said Lei.

From sound to ultrasound

Infrasound refers to sound waves below the frequency of human hearing, while ultrasound waves are high frequency.

It’s that higher sound frequency window that most think of when it comes to medical imaging of soft tissues, whether in a sheep or a person.

The imPulse Una, however, runs a much wider range. It tracks acoustic signals from the infrasound to the ultrasound, including both audible and inaudible vibrations. From there, the system’s artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithm makes sense of the sound patterns. All information is transferred to Vibrome via the cloud.

Data collected from the vibrational frequencies can be linked to the animal’s health, physiology and age.

“But all this work needs a lot of data collection to build the model first. What we are currently working on is the initial data collection,” he said.

Practical applications

The college and company first set their eyes on using the technology to detect barber’s pole worm.

“It’s a very important parasite infection in sheep, in the small ruminants,” Lei said.

Mature worms live in the stomach of sheep and goats, suck on the stomach membranes and drink the animal’s blood. If there’s enough of them, the animal becomes anemic.

“In severe cases, the animal would drop dead,” said Lei.

This typically happens in the early spring, when worms from the previous year wake from hibernation and continue to mature.

They can also become an issue for young lambs who go out on pasture and pick up the parasite.

“If they ingest enough worms, they could also have a severe reaction,” the researcher noted, adding that, even in less severe infections “the animals would still suffer from production loss because they must fight with the parasites, who create wounds in their stomachs.”

One University of Calgary study also noted burgeoning treatment challenges. After testing 20 sheep farms, the study found an alarming number of barber’s pole worms already resistant to dewormer.

Lei said this indicated a need for better parasite management plan for sheep flocks. Currently, there are only two approved dewormers for sheep in Canada.

The trial, which put the imPulse Una to work looking for signs of infection, verified results with blood and bowel markers to identify parasite infections.

Sheep were separated into four groups. Two groups were a control, while the others were inoculated with barber’s pole worm larvae. Of the two inoculated groups, one group was left untreated, while the other one was treated with dewormer on day 28.

Before that treatment, though, researchers pulled out the imPulse Una.

“We collected (data) for 10 animals from each group in December,” said Lei.

The AI stethoscope gathered data from five locations on each animal: the heart, lungs, neck, stomach and intestines.

Results showed the device was able to distinguish infected ewes from non-infected ones on day 28.

Researchers followed up their data collection on day 35, 42 and 56.

The research team then looked at ewe pregnancy checks. It was Lei’s thought that, if the device could detect parasites in the stomach, it should also work for a fetus.

Those pregnancy check trials began last winter. Again, researchers collected vibrational signal data from different locations of the sheep’s body, including the neck, heart, lungs and regions where the fetus would be developing.

They then did ultrasound scans on the same animals in late January and early February to compare the accuracy of their AI machine learning model.

Researchers are currently collecting data on the end results of those pregnancies, such as lambing date and number of lambs from each ewe. They are still waiting for some animals to lamb.

Once they do, all the data collected will be shared with Vibrome to build linkages between the data and real-world results.

Farmers may one day be able to preg check their own sheep using the system. That would be a boon in an industry where there aren’t enough ultrasound techs or veterinarians to go around.

“I’m hoping the pregnancy check will be the first commercial function that the company can sell to farmers,’” Lei said.

Outside of livestock, the researcher noted, there’s implications for human health. The device could conceivably be used to detect preeclampsia and gestational diabetes in pregnant women earlier and more accurately.

The post Artificial intelligence powers sheep pregnancy and parasite detection tool appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

This article will describe a specific example of this. Certain points may fit into the management of your operation. Some points may become obvious when the processing starts and can be added in directly at that time or a note can be made to include them next year.

Consider these points when fall pregnancy checking. This is still not done by 40 per cent of producers — which is always surprising to me.

In this example, it was decided this year to utilize the veterinarian pregnancy check with the herd and help with a few other things.

There were two main things which were added into the protocol. The veterinarian suggested since this herd had always been vaccinated with a modified live vaccine for IBR and BVD just before breeding, the cattle would have very good immunity. And with the cows now well into their third trimester of pregnancy, that vaccine (which has fetal protection) could be added into this processing — saving the producers running the cows through before breeding (when it is difficult to separate the calves off).

This is a very important decision and must be done with the advice of your herd veterinarian as he or she must be happy with the previous protection from BVD and IBR which your herd has received. The veterinarian would also save you the costs of vaccinating any open cows and they could be shipped directly.

Resistance to the avermectins (pour-on endectocides) was found in this herd, so deworming with a different oral product and a hook feeder (fenbendazole) was also given. (Deworming and lice treatments should also be discussed with your herd veterinarian.)

As mentioned in other articles, you should always have a supply of the CCIA tags ready for cull cows so, if needed, they are tagged right when the cows are caught. Record the dangle tag and if possible sort her out right then as well. You as the producer should have the quick ability to sort at least two ways out of the chute. It doesn’t take much to even put up a few portable panels to make this happen.

I never like the statement, ‘We can do that later,’ because often later never seems to come — a person is too busy with other things and the details get lost. We always mark the open and late cows with a crayon mark in case cows got back together.

The producer had trouble reading tags in the past because of hair over the tags or dirt covering the number. Having a cleansing solution and a good pair of scissors rectified this.

Again, none of these things slowed the procedure down to any degree, and there will be recaptured labour and fewer mistakes made at calving when tags could be read. A few cows had tags missing and because they were purebreds, the tattoos were read and tags made immediately.

If in a real hurry, sort them off and retag at the end of the day. If calving on larger tracks of land, carry around a good set of pocket-size binoculars and you will be amazed at how often they get used reading tag numbers.

On this processing day an unexpected twist happened.

A few of the cows appeared overly thin so at the same time as pregnancy checking, the veterinarian did a body condition score and the decision was made to remove the heifers and any cows with a 2.0 condition score. This allowed the producer to bring up the condition score of the cattle to acceptable levels for calving and minimized competition in the main herd — a win-win situation. This could very easily be accomplished by sorting out of the chute.

A few other fringe benefits were also seen.

In pregnancy checking these far pregnant cows, a few sets of twins were identified which the producer could keep an extra watch on at calving. They ended up in the thin group (which is not surprising given they were feeding two fetuses). After examining the lists afterwards, it became apparent that a high percentage of the first calvers made it into the thin group, which I am sure is not surprising to anyone.

What was an eye-opener were the older cows.

A definite distinction was seen for cows older than 10 years — more than half of them made it into the thin herd. The younger and older cows had a hard time competing. This sort was still done far enough from the start of calving to bring the cows that needed extra nutrition up to good condition. As a result, good-quality colostrum will be produced and the cows being on a rising plane of nutrition should develop good protection to the vaccines.

Many chute-side computer programs are based on the individual RFID tag number, so this can be utilized as well so input of data can become automatic. This information helps with culling.

When pregnancy checking next time, use this example of how to better utilize your herd veterinarian. Hopefully, it will make your life easier in the long run. It also potentially eliminates a further processing in the future by doing as much as humanly possible with one pass through the chute.

Make sure to ask lots of questions on pressing subjects. With herds like this, the VCPR (veterinary client patient relationship) is automatically maintained.

The post An example of making the most of a pass through the squeeze chute appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

In 2012, the association’s food animal advisory committee recommended such a move, but ABVMA members were not supportive. Last year, the committee again recommended allowing veterinary technologists to use ultrasound for pregnancy detection, noting the technology “has become very accurate” and is now often used by “laypeople.”

“The Food Animal Advisory Committee would like to keep pregnancy detection within the profession and enhance the perception of the veterinary team to animal owners,” the association said in a recent e-newsletter to members.

The post Opening up use of preg check ultrasound appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Beef economist Kathy Larson of the Western Beef Development Centre doesn’t always recommend feeding open cows.

“It’s a costly venture, particularly when we have tight feed supplies,” she said. “In Saskatchewan, we’re paying 5-1/2 or six cents for hay, and so I wouldn’t see that keeping open cows would make sense.”

Most calves and the bulk of cows hit the market in the fall, pushing down prices. But prices usually rise during the winter.

“There’s some thought that if you held on to them, and maybe put a little more condition or weight on them, the price the following spring would more than make up the cost that you incurred to overwinter them,” she said.

Using price data from the past 10 years, Canfax Research Services recently applied price trends and put those into an online calculator developed by the Beef Cattle Research Council. That allowed it to estimate the financial benefits of three options; culling open cows in the fall; preg checking and feeding them separately; and skipping the pregnancy check and giving every cow similar rations. It then broke the prices down further to consider four feeding systems; dry lot, swathed barley, bale grazing, and corn grazing, and calculated average daily gain in each.

Larson advises producers to use the online calculator to put their own numbers in.

“Over the last 10 years, we have seen prices typically drop 15 per cent from the summer high to November,” she said. “We have the slump in the market because producers were preg checking and then there are a lot of open cows coming to the market.”

The Canfax study found producers would be significantly further ahead if they don’t preg check and feed cows all winter. But the prices estimated in the blog post, published on Aug. 31, have already changed, said Larson.

“They talk about how prices will be 95 cents (per pound) this fall and it’s already 90 cents,” Larson said on Sept. 13. “It changes so fast.”

One of the things producers can do is get some current pricing information. There are free sources available, or people who have a subscription to Canfax can go and see historical data as well.

“I am a huge proponent of getting producers to start getting comfortable with their numbers, and using calculators that are there,” said Larson.

(If they see shortfalls of these calculators, they can always give their feedback to the Western Beef Development Centre, Canfax, or the Beef Cattle Research Council, so they can improve on the tools available, she added.)

In its study, Canfax assumed prices would increase 27 per cent from November to March, which has been the average of the past 10 years. But that jump didn’t happen in 2016, said Larson.

“It was only 15 per cent,” she said. “They do say near the end of the article that if prices only increase five per cent, then you see that it doesn’t really pay, or it pays very little.”

Everyone’s situation is different, and producers need to put in their own numbers, she said.

The calculator accounts for either feeding cattle separately or as a group, but not bale grazing, swath grazing, or feeding them with standing corn.

“That’s not built into this little online calculator,” she said.

The Beef Cattle Research Council calculator (called the ‘Economics of Pregnancy Testing Beef Cattle’ model) allows users to enter their own overwintering costs, average daily gain, length of winter feeding period, and other variables. It can be found at on the BCRC website via the Resources pull-down menu and Decision Making Tools.

The Western Beef Development Centre has an online cost-of-production calculator. It can be found at www.wbdc.sk.ca.

The post Will feeding open cows cost — or make — you money this winter? appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Over the last 10 years, it really hasn’t been,” said Brenna Grant, manager of Canfax Research Services. “But there is a threshold, at about $1.02 per pound. If prices are lower than that, it encourages producers to preg check and cull in the fall.”

Cow prices in the later part of September were sitting around $1 per pound, Grant said during a Beef Cattle Research Council webinar late last month.

“That means we’re right on that threshold of where it makes sense for producers to take a really hard look at their own costs to determine what’s going to make sense on their own operation,” said Grant.

“We have seen prices peak in 2015, and we’re actually seeing prices coming down. So does preg checking now actually become economically viable?”

• Read more: Preg checking: Which method is right for your farm?

Despite the cost of overwintering open cows, the 2015 Western Canadian Cow-Calf Survey showed that only 60 per cent of producers preg check their cows, although that is up from 49 per cent from the 1998 survey.

The higher price of cows each spring has “really discouraged preg checking over the last 10 years,” said Grant. “The price of cows is a really big determinant of what you’re going to do.

“Producers in Western Canada who have been overwintering their cows have received, on average, prices 25 per cent higher in the spring than the previous fall, so producers have really not benefited from preg checking with these increases.”

Because cull cows make up between 15 to 30 per cent of a cow-calf producer’s income, conventional wisdom is that open cows should be preg checked and then sold to avoid winter feeding costs, said Grant.

“The management of cull cows is not an insignificant aspect of a producer’s income,” she said.

“But the value of a cow in a cow-calf producer’s operation is dependent on a number of parameters… including his type of winter feeding management and the length of the feeding period.

“The economics of preg checking are really dependent on the cull cow market price, but also the winter management system.”

The type of winter feeding system impacts not only yardage and feed costs, but also the average daily gain of the animals, she added.

“That’s going to play a role on how much of an advantage or disadvantage you have keeping those cows over the winter.”

Running the numbers

The average cost of production varies from around $1 to $1.80 per day, depending on the winter feeding management system used.

“Over a 160-day feeding period, producers can save anywhere between $155 and $240 per open cow identified and culled. Obviously, producers who feed longer, say 180 days, are going to have larger gains,” said Grant.

The cost of feed accounts for around 60 per cent of a producer’s total winter feeding costs, she said.

“The higher a producer’s feed and overwinter costs, the more favourable preg checking and culling cows in the fall is.”

But cow performance can offset that, she added.

“You may have low feed costs, which makes it look like it would be attractive to feed and sell in the spring, but if your average daily gain is minimal, that offsets some of the advantage.”

Those numbers vary based on the type of winter feeding system used. In a drylot mixed hay system, the average cost of production is around $1.78 per cow per day. To break even, the cows need an average daily gain of around 1.2 pounds per day, but cows generally see an average daily gain of 1.44 pounds on that system, which “really favours selling in the spring.”

A swathed barley grazing system has an average cost of production of $1.22 per cow per day, with a break-even of 0.7 pound average daily gain per day and an actual average daily gain of around 0.58 pound.

“In that system, you actually have a lower average daily gain, so this means it really favours preg checking and selling in the fall,” said Grant.

Bale grazing, on the other hand, has a cost of production of 98 cents per cow per day, so to break even, cows only need around 0.5 pound average daily gain per day.

“In bale grazing, even though it’s your lowest cost of production at less than $1 a day and it has a very low break-even average daily gain as a result, you can actually have quite good average daily gains of about 0.88, and that again encourages selling in the spring,” she said.

Ultimately, your decision will rest on the goal of your winter feeding system, said Grant.

“Is it to actually add pounds, or is it simply to maintain those cows? If your goal is simply to maintain them, you’re not looking for these average daily gains and selling in the fall may be what’s best for your operation.”

A calculator for determining the economics of preg checking on your operation can be found at beefresearch.ca.

The post Can you afford to feed open cows this winter? appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“The method that best suits your situation will really depend on the management of your herd, your geographic location, potentially even the year,” said Dr. Jessica Gordon, an assistant professor at the Ontario Veterinary College.

Rectal palpation — which involves a veterinarian inserting a gloved hand into a cow’s rectum to feel for the fetus — is the most commonly used method in Western Canada. But blood tests and rectal ultrasounds using a hands-free probe are becoming more common, Gordon said during a Beef Cattle Research Council webinar.

Each method comes with some pros and cons, she said.

Rectal palpation, for instance, costs about $5 a head and doesn’t require special equipment — “anyone can buy plastic sleeves and lube from your local farm store.”

“But the skill required takes a lot of time and practice to really be efficient and effective at it. It takes palpating thousands of animals before the accuracy is quite good,” said Gordon, adding experienced practitioners can have an accuracy rate of 99 per cent.

• Read more: Can you afford to feed open cows this winter?

Rectal ultrasounds work a little like human ultrasounds, by taking an image of the fetus, she said.

“At 35 days, it may not look like much that’s easily identifiable as a calf, but we can get a picture of the heart, and we can actually see those valves moving,” said Gordon. “We can make sure the heart rate is good and that the heart seems to be functioning properly. That helps us determine the viability of that fetus.”

But it’s often the costliest option for preg checking, at between $5 to $10 a head.

“Some practitioners think this saves so much wear and tear on their arm that they’re willing to offer it at the same fee as rectal palpation,” she said, adding it’s also quicker.

But practitioners require an ultrasound unit (which is “fairly expensive”) and the skill to accurately read the ultrasound screen.

“It does require a fair bit of practice to be able to master this skill, but it can be upwards of 99 per cent accurate,” said Gordon. “Because you’re able to look for that fetal heartbeat and you can see exactly what’s in the uterus, you get a little bit more accuracy than you can with rectal palpation.”

Blood tests are a relatively new tool for preg checking, and as such, some on the market have “questionable” accuracy, said Gordon, adding a test called BioPRYN is the “most promising” one currently available.

“The cost is about $5 per head, but again, that’s going to vary greatly based on where you are because it requires shipment to the lab,” said Gordon, adding producers can buy kits that include everything they need to do the test.

Unlike the other methods of preg checking, blood tests don’t require a veterinarian, making it the most cost-effective option for a small herd or for farms not located near a veterinary practice. But results from blood tests may take up to a week and may give a false positive, she added.

“The accuracy of this test is about 99 per cent for open cows and 93 per cent for pregnant cows, which means if the test says the cow is open, it’s going to be right 99 per cent of the time,” she said. “If the test says the cow is pregnant, it’s going to be right 93 per cent of the time, which means seven per cent of the time, it’s going to be wrong.”

Producers will need to choose the best method for their herd based on their own operation.

“The type of pregnancy checking you choose to use might vary from year to year or group to group on your farm,” she said. “You have to discuss with your veterinarian to really help you choose what’s the most appropriate for your situation — what’s going to give you the best bang for your buck.”

The post Preg checking: Which method is right for your farm? appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.