{"id":19917,"date":"2026-05-03T13:28:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T19:28:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/?p=19917"},"modified":"2026-05-25T14:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T20:13:12","slug":"digital-phenotyping-smart-tags-smarter-breeding-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/digital-phenotyping-smart-tags-smarter-breeding-decisions","title":{"rendered":"Digital Phenotyping: Smart Tags, Smarter Breeding Decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"AJ-Knowles\"
AJ-Knowles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By A.J. Knowles, International and Technical Solutions Specialist, 701X<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Fertility is one of the most important \u2014 and hardest to measure \u2014 traits in a cow herd. Missed heats, unknown breeding dates, and limited observation time all reduce the accuracy of breeding and selection decisions today. Smart devices like the 701X XTPro and XTLite tag are changing how we think about fertility and creating new opportunities to capture these data points. By placing A.I. right on the animal, the device creates a second set of eyes watching each animal, allowing producers to monitor activity even when they\u2019re not looking. These devices monitor constantly, painting a clear picture of when a cow cycles, breeds, and calves. More than fertility, they also alert when animals get out of pasture, get sick, or lose their tag. Even better, the tags integrate directly with DigitalBeef and the Autonomous Rancher platform to create records automatically and send alerts right to your smartphone. By adding these technologies, producers can collect accurate, real-time records of the traits that matter most, right from their pocket.<\/p>\n

HOW DOES THIS WORK?
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

By monitoring motion and activity in many research herds during critical periods, unique motion signatures for behaviors such as mounting and calving can be created, allowing the tag to provide alerts when such behavior is detected by the tag\u2019s on-board A.I.. These alerts can create a history of which animals were exhibiting estrus first, calving first, and even allow us to know which bulls were nearby and breeding at the most likely time of conception. By putting this information together, producers can identify which bulls are working the hardest and which females are producing on time. By culling animals that are not cycling, not breeding, or not settling, excess animal costs can be reduced and profitability can be maximized.<\/p>\n

WHAT\u2019S THE BENEFIT?
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

For in-herd use, these measures provide accurate and unbiased data, allowing producers to make breeding decisions that increase profitability and productivity of their herds. These measures can also be used across herds, allowing producers to monitor activity and provide warranties on bulls sold. Most importantly however, these data points can provide increased value for genetic evaluations, particularly those that incorporate data from around the globe. Satellite and cellular connectivity in smart devices allow producers around the globe to collect identical and objective data across environments, allowing multiple data sources to be easily incorporated into combined genetic evaluations, increasing the power and accuracy of EPDs. For example, recent research indicates that evaluating heifer pregnancy using known breeding dates can increase heritability estimates as much as 300% over using the yes\/no presence of a calf that is currently used today. If your herd could benefit from making 3x more progress in one of the most economically important traits to an operation today, maybe it\u2019s time to rethink how you collect your data.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Smart devices like the 701X XTPro and XTLite tag are changing how we think about fertility and creating new opportunities to capture these data points<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4140,"featured_media":19918,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19,9,21],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19917","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brahman-news","8":"category-current-news","9":"category-industry-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19917"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19920,"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19917\/revisions\/19920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}