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Making precision livestock tech more feasible  

Michigan State University researchers are trying to identify where precision livestock technology can best suit the needs and budgets of pork producers.

Animal Science professor Janice Sigford tells Brownfield, “Some of the things that producers want the most help with, not surprisingly, are some of the repetitive tasks or some of the tasks that are maybe hardest to do when you get a low human to animal ratio.”

Sigford is currently identifying the feasibility of potential equipment to address piglet mortality and labor shortages.

“Regardless of whether we’re talking stalls or open pen systems, I think we can do better and automation could help us have eyes and ears out in the barn all the time,” she says.

But she says the expected costs of new systems seem to vary greatly.

“A lot of ‘it depends’ in that conversation still, and there’s a lot of uncertainty because a lot of it simply hasn’t scaled up enough to be widely available or is still in those early stages,” she shares.

Sigford says including producer perspectives helps improve the practicality of solutions and needs to be part of the development process.

Brownfield interviewed Sigford as part of the Michigan Pork Symposium where she was a featured speaker.