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Using muzzle prints to manage disease outbreaks in cattle

An agtech startup is analyzing images of cow muzzles to predict illness several days before the cattle become symptomatic.

Shekhar Gupta, CEO and founder of MyAnIML, says the AI-driven technology uses the company’s proprietary facial recognition software, and has been 99.4% effective in predicting bovine pinkeye, “As the cows start to get sick, but are not symptomatic yet, their muzzle starts to change. For example, it either flattens out or darkens, there are so many different things that happen. And these changes are not obvious to the human eye.”

Bovine pinkeye is highly contagious and the most common ocular disease of cattle globally, treatment and performance loss costs U.S. producers an estimated $150 million annually.

He tells Brownfield early detection helps reduce treatment costs and allows for more judicious use of antibiotics, “They don’t have to then provide the antibiotics to every incoming calf. They can just target the antibiotics to only those calves that need it.”

Gupta says collaborative research between the USDA and animal agtech startup MyAnIML has been ongoing.  The study included 870 beef cattle located on three different Kansas ranches during the summers of 2021 and 2022.

Gupta says he hopes the technology can be applied to predict Bovine Respiratory Disease, a disease that costs producers more than $900 million annually.

The patent-pending technology platform uses AI, facial recognition, and inexpensive GoPro cameras to automatically capture and analyze subtle changes in a cow’s muzzle.