The Inkoa company has devised an intelligent system for the electronic identification of animals which is said to eliminate the errors of current systems for animal and meat product identification.
The company says that the new technology enables the automation of on-line processes in animal husbandry, abbatoirs, quartering plants and in the meat industry in general.
The electronic ID of animals, IDELAN, allows the automated control and management of animal farming and of the meat industry, based on the automatic reception of information on animals and meat products. This provides an advantage over current operations, apart from enhanced safety and rapidity, in terms of the availability of information and of the automation of the processes based thereon.
These systems, based on microelectronic technology, provide an integral identification system which is permanent, accurate and safe, and which allows the identification of the animal throughout the production chain and control points.
The system is integrated with electronic identifiers (transponders such as, for example, a ruminal bolus, an auricular crotalum or a subcutaneous tag), lectors, software for data treatment and automation and control systems, with various applications, each one adapted to the specific needs of the customer.
Advantages of electronic identification
The technology is said to eliminate errors in reading and transcription. It avoids the loss of information and facilitates the carrying out of controls. It accelerates the transmission of data and provides computerisation, control and automation of the animal farms and meat industries.
The company also says that all the information generated as a consequence of the IDELAN electronic identification system for automation and control can be visualised and managed via the Internet so that the end-user and the various organisations involved can access the information automatically and remotely.
Electronic tracing
The application of electronic identification throughout the production chain will enable the automatic retrieval of the life history of the meat products, from the animal farming stage to the meat product sales outlet stage. The system was developed by INKOA manages global data bases and ultimately takes into account and stores the comings and goings during the life of the animal and its transformation into the end-product.
Amongst this data is the sex, age, aptitude, registration date, batch number, herd code, the breed, buying and selling date, slaughter-house leave date, and so on - for each animal.
The company says that the technology involves various modules of management and automated control, namely for animal farming and the abbatoir applications.
In animal farming it allows classification by batches, automatic feed dosage, yield control, movement of animals amongst herds, automatic registration of the clinical and health historyIn the abbatoir it allows more precise rendering and distribution, which means better automatic identification and classification of carcass pieces, control of storage and transport conditions and control of manufactured batches.
Various applications
Inkoa claims that the technology will facilitate tasks in many areas such as the automatic classification of animals, management of birth deliveries, feeding control, health campaigns, control of reproduction and artificial insemination and milk control.
The milk control system, for example, based on electronic identification, facilitates the control process and eliminates errors in the identification of animals and samples. This application enables the immediate identification of parameters such as the increase in yield on a farm, detection of mamitis, the genetic evaluation of ancestors or the follow-up of samples taken and analyses made.
The application incorporates, moreover, a programme for the labelling of milk samples, allowing their identification and follow-up. This application is principally aimed at milk producers' associations plans for genetic improvements and at herd owners themselves for optimising milking and milk production.
Also, the automatic control of feeding automatically provides and doses the quantity of a determined diet for each animal, aimed at optimising yield.
Inkoa says that the various applications of the system include: individual feeding, aimed at controlling weight and production yields and enabling the automatic establishment of a daily feeding hour, control of dosage or providing dosage throughout the day; batch feeding applications whereby, by means of either virtual or physical batches, a feed type and dosage is provided to each batch.