News / Intelligent Barn
Are you farming intelligently?
Intelligent agriculture requires the farmer to be ahead of the game. Precision agriculture is no longer the domain of the arable sector. Stockmen are now empowered by a toolbox that helps them prevent clinical diseases and limit the financial burden of sub clinical infections. That toolbox is the Intelligent Barn system from Pruex. “Top stockmen are making use of the latest technology to keep their animals healthy” says Aled Rhys Davies who founded Pruex as a result of his findings during a two year Nuffield Farming Scholarship looking at alternatives to antibiotics in agriculture.
Pruex offer a three tier approach to identifying and reducing bacterial pressure on livestock that require differing levels of farm labour. The fully automated Intelligent Barn system uses sensor technology to detect Ammonia, Carbon Dioxide, Humidity and temperature within farm buildings as well as wind direction, precipitation, temperature and humidity outside the buildings. A dashboard then coordinates automatic misting of non infective bacteria within buildings and treatment of water systems to reduce the threat from feacal bacteria within the animals direct environment. More labour is required if the farmer adopts the secondary partially automated Intelligent Barn system. Here, the stockman is informed by text message of modulations within the animals environments that require action. They then perform the misting duties by hand held device. Some farmers opt for a tertiary offering where they perform regular treatments of water and bedding by set protocol determined by microbiological testing.
“Reductions in Ammonia and Carbon Dioxide are achievable when using intelligent agricultural technology. I had no idea that the increases in production that follow when animals aren’t continually challenged by bad air, dirty water and wet bedding were so great” says Aled.
Pruex work with farmers to FIND the cause of disease on their farms, FIX the problems with a clever toolbox inspired by nature, and TELL consumers of the good work done in agriculture to reduce the need for antibiotics.
