New Zealand startup reinvents the automated crowd gate
Former New Zealand dairy farmer and entrepreneur Richard Appleby received a call from his dairy farmer friend during COVID-19 that would change the course of his career.
His friend lamented on the call that cows were getting injured, white-line disease had flared up, and his milking shifts were slower and less efficient than he wanted them to be. He attributed all of it to his cow pushers and how they were moving cows up to the parlor.
The conversation got him thinking, “Why are we still pushing cows to the parlor the same way?”
Since then, he talked to a bunch of farmers and confirmed cow pushing was a pain point for them too. He and a partner have redesigned the concept of an automated crowd gate. Their new innovation – called Gatekeeper – pairs a physical crowd gate with computer vision and moves based on what the technology “sees” is actually going on in the holding pen. Their technology once installed can commandeer any existing crowd gate and take control of how it operates to improve cow flow into the parlor.
“We have yet to find a gate we can’t work with,” Appleby says.
Read more about Appleby’s startup Moover and the Gatekeeper technology below.
Onfarm Solutions (Sponsor)
Teatwand has been partnering with dealers and farmers for over 15 years, providing award-winning teat spraying technology that reduces labor costs and protects cows from mastitis. Learn more here.
