University Field Trial Results: 18-Month BRD Monitoring Study

The 18-month BRD monitoring study, conducted in partnership with a university animal science department, was designed to address a gap in the existing literature: most published studies on electronic health monitoring in cattle are short-duration trials with small animal numbers. This trial aimed to track a larger cohort across multiple feeding periods and seasonal cycles to assess long-term tag performance, detection consistency, and operational integration.

Trial Structure

The study enrolled 1,200 crossbred beef cattle across three consecutive feeding periods. All animals were tagged upon arrival and monitored continuously through harvest. Data was collected across summer, fall, and winter periods to capture seasonal variation in both ambient conditions and disease pressure.

Tag Performance

Tag performance was evaluated on three dimensions: data transmission rate, temperature accuracy, and durability. Mean data transmission completeness was 97.3% across the full trial period. Temperature accuracy, validated against rectal temperature at treatment pulls, showed a mean deviation of 0.4°F (0.2°C) — within the clinical range required for reliable fever detection.

Tag loss rate across the 18-month period was 1.8%, primarily from tags lost during normal cattle handling. No tag failures attributable to manufacturing defects were recorded after the first 30 days.

Disease Detection Results

BRD was the primary health challenge encountered during the trial, consistent with expectations for commercial-weight beef cattle. Of 312 recorded BRD cases, 271 (86.9%) were flagged by temperature alert before pen rider identification. Mean time from first alert to treatment was 9.2 hours for alert-initiated pulls versus 27.6 hours for visually identified pulls.

Secondary Health Events

The monitoring system also flagged 44 cases subsequently diagnosed as conditions other than BRD, including digestive disorders and lameness-associated fever. While the system is designed primarily for respiratory disease detection, the data suggests broader utility in identifying any condition with a fever component.

Operational Integration

Staff at the facility reported that dashboard integration into daily pen management became routine within the first 30 days of the trial. The primary operational change was the addition of a morning alert review to the pen rider checklist — a process that added approximately 10 minutes to daily management time while reducing total pulls per period by an estimated 15%.

Conclusions

The 18-month dataset provides strong evidence for the reliability and clinical utility of continuous ear-temperature monitoring in commercial beef settings. Detection rates, tag performance, and operational integration metrics all exceeded pre-trial benchmarks. Full study results will be submitted for peer review publication in 2026.