SCR developed the Lely Qwes-H and Lely Qwes-HR monitoring system, which will identify the cow and measure cow’s activity. The additional functionality of the Qwes-HR system is that it also measures the cow’s ruminating activity, which is an indication of the cow’s health.



 

The activity measurement is based on an acceleration sensor instead of the commonly used mercury ones. Mercury is already prohibited in many countries. The system will monitor a cow’s activity in blocks of 2 hours and thus provide very accurate information on the cow’s behaviour.



With the Lely Qwes-HR rumination-time monitoring technology we can obtain indicators of individual animal health. A sudden reduction in rumination activity compared to a cow’s normal rumination time perhaps indicates that the cow has lost her appetite, has eaten too much concentrate per kg effective fi bre, is in heat or ill. Continued loss of appetite can be an indicator of sub-clinical ketosis or acidosis.



 

This gives a dairy farmer an early signal so that he can increase the forage level in the diet. Together with heat detection, the Lely Qwes-HR collar gives the farmer on-line information about each individual cow’s rumination, which serves as an indicator of the cow’s health and provides information for feeding and management.