The perfect pair- Herdwatch acquires Bullmatch
On Wednesday 6th of March Fota Island Resort welcomed a series of industry leaders for a half day LEO AgTech conference. In fitting with the event’s theme on ‘The Future of Sustainable Agricultural Business’ an array of topics were discussed ranging from the trends and challenges facing the agricultural industry to how AgTech can play a crucial role in the sustainability of the sector.
The keynote speaker on the day was Herdwatch Founder and CEO Fabien Peyaud. Fabien gave a compelling speech on the challenges and opportunities of the AgTech Evolution.
Herdwatch’s innovation is a key contributing factor to the app’s success. Recently this year the award winning farm management app added a farm medicine scanner to the app, launched in Northern Ireland and partnered with all three tag providers in Ireland to allow it’s members directly order replacement tags from the app. In the app’s most recent expansion Herdwatch has acquired the match making innovation technology; Bullmatch.
Helping cows meet their ‘ideal’ bull
Bullmatch is an innovative technology that helps farmers match cows with the best bulls often referred to as ‘Tinder for Bulls’. By adding this new function to Herdwatch, it offers an unrivalled level of decision support to farmers operating in the Suckler and Dairy sectors, for whom breeding is a critical success factor.
‘Innovative Artificial Intelligence technology will help thousands of farmers match their cows with the best bulls.
This new feature will save farmers hours researching and matching each individual cow to the best bull, but more importantly ensures the best chance of achieving the full genetic potential of their breeding herd.
The science behind it
The Bullmatch technology allows farmers to select one or more characteristics they look for in a calf, for example a star or EBI rating, and within seconds the software, using an advanced algorithm similar to Artificial Intelligence, will suggest a list of bulls to achieve this result with the selected cows.
‘What we’re doing is taking the indexes of the cow and bull, matching them and predicting the type of calf that cow and bull will have. It’s a pre-breeding management tool.’
The creators
Brian and Teresa Kelly, creators of this innovative technology whom are also long-term Herdwatch customers for their pedigree Limousin breeding enterprise in Co. Clare, where they farm alongside Brian’s parents.
‘Herdwatch has been our first-choice software on the farm for years, and we believe it to be the perfect fit for Bullmatch. We are looking forward to the future developments of the platform.
Bullmatch is currently only available to Beef farmers in Ireland but Herdwatch plan to expand it to Dairy farmers in the very near future and bring this technology to the UK and to Northern Ireland where the company has recently launched. Over the coming months Bullmatch founder Brian Kelly will work closely with the Herdwatch team, who are planning to include this highly anticipated function in an update of the app, which all members will receive automatically when it is released.
Herdwatch is fully compliant with Bord Bia and EU quality assurance standards, and allows farmers to register calves and manage cattle movements on their phone. It is fully integrated with ICBF so farmers can see their breeding, milk records and EBI/Eurostar information on Herdwatch.
You too can join over 10,000 happy farmers saving time on farm paperwork and managing their farms more efficiently for FREE.
The Free-Plan allows farmers to:
- Download their Herd from APHIS (NI), BCMS (UK) or Agfood (IRL)
- Record 5 calf registrations
- Record their medicine purchases
- Record Heat detection and general tasks
Still not sure? Why not talk to a member of our team today to find out more by requesting a call back here
