This request came
to me by way of a dairy farmer in Minnesota. He has a large number of milk cows and
breeds them. He said he lost a few cows because they had trouble giving birth in
the middle of the night. What could be done to help him?
The farmer wanted an egg shaped
device to be placed in the cow’s virginal area. Flexible “flapper” arms on the
device with low pressure springs would be held against the egg when inserted. Once
inside, the arms would grip the uterine walls. The device would contain a small
battery and an encoded radio transmitter. When the cow starts giving birth, the egg
would be forced out as the calf is pushed through the birth canal. A switch
connected to one of the flapper arms would switch on the radio transmitter. A
nearby box, containing a matching radio receiver, would collect the ID info for the
particular cow and send it to the farmer by various means. |
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