Context

There are many challenges when it comes to animal health monitoring. Diagnosing respiratory diseases in calves is complex and often relies heavily on the presence of well-trained staff. Unfortunately, symptoms are typically detected too late, as animals tend to hide signs of illness. At the same time, the sector is facing a growing shortage of skilled labour, rising demands for efficiency, increasing consumer expectations and the urgent need to transition to a greener economy. These pressures highlight the need for improved monitoring solutions that emphasise prevention over treatment.

Instead of relying on manually recorded treatment data, Wisecow Health now collects continuous health data 24/7, creating the conditions for earlier detection, better decision-making and more proactive care.

There is also the issue of the time lost when working on a farm, unintentionally and unmonitored. A rule of thumb is that only around one-third of the time is spent on the actual task while the rest is used for locating animals, reading ear tags to identify them, writing down observations and communicating tasks to colleagues. This happens 365 days a year. Wisecow Find's solutions address this challenge by offering fully automated, paper-free systems that streamline daily operations and save valuable time.

Objectives

The clear goal was to introduce the first automatic youngstock health monitoring solution (for young animals) using implant technology, to reduce disease incidence and mortality among young calves and enable full lifecycle monitoring of animals both on and off the farm, including during cross-industry transport and stress situations.

The system should also provide early warnings before clinical symptoms appear and offer decision support to improve treatment effectiveness, reduce drug usage, enhance animal health and welfare and lower farms' CO₂ footprints.

The solution also targeted optimisations and standardisations of procedures to ensure cost-effectiveness and scalability, enabling instant and accurate animal identification, and reducing paper use on farms by implementing digital, paper-free solutions where possible.

Overall, the aim was to make the dairy sector more attractive through the adoption of innovative, modern technologies.

Activities

Development of the cattle disease detection device: This included the novel subcutaneous implant, gateway system and Wisecow AI cloud platform for forming and analysing health profiles (Wisecow Health). The process spanned every stage from concept to production, encompassing electronics and technology design, hardware and software development, construction design, consultation with manufacturing professionals, preproduction trials, industrialisation updates and preparations for serial production and quality control.

Creation of technology for locating animals in barns: Starting from scratch, this involved developing novel LED collars, a gateway system and the Wisecow workflow app (Wisecow Find). Following initial development, related industrialisation and updates based on farm trials were carried out.

User story development and co-creation process: This involved combining technical capabilities, user needs, scientific validation, efficiency in time use and user-friendly farm processes with Wisecow interface development. Every step of the workflow, be it implant injection, health status checks, animal location, visual design, or barn tasks supported by Wisecow devices, was carefully analysed. Inputs were validated through animal trials by measuring and analysing each step, along with user learning and error rates. Though time-consuming, this process was crucial for creating logical, practical solutions that assist even inexperienced farm staff.

Wisecow Health and Find applications were showcased at the Finnish Agricultural Machinery Trade Fair Innovation Market in Helsinki in October 2024. The Finnish EIP-AGRI Operational Group assisted in preparing Finnish-language materials for better accessibility. Project members have also been invited to several EU CAP Network seminars and workshops. The project leader, Hardi Tamm, has actively participated in many events, sharing Wisecow’s experiences, innovation cooperation and project results.

The project was ready to begin offering commercial services by the second half of 2025.

Gender equality

Two female veterinarians were responsible for assessing animal health and training farmers in proper procedures, while two others served as mentors throughout the development process.

At least eight women, holding various farm personnel roles, performed procedures after receiving training. More than 20 women from different farms and roles participated in planning, interim discussions and the co-creation process during Estonian Dairy Cluster (EDC) meetings.

These women played an integral role in the innovation and co-creation process—a rare opportunity to be part of something truly new, transforming an idea into a real solution. They had the chance to work directly with Wisecow tools shaped by their own input, which supported their personal motivation and provided genuine engagement with innovation.

Generational Renewal

Young people have been involved in the project at multiple levels. Two veterinarians under the age of 40 were responsible for assessing animal procedures and training farmers, and they later continued to monitor and evaluate animal health.

Several members of the farm personnel, including workers performing procedures, trainees and some farm owners, were also under 40. A key value of the trials was that traditional farm personnel, rather than trained veterinarians, implemented the health sensor technologies.

Young professionals in various roles contributed to the planning, interim discussions and co-creation process of the EDC meetings.

One of the aims of the Wisecow project was to make the dairy sector more attractive by introducing modern solutions. These innovations are especially appealing to young people, and working with such novel tools has proved highly motivating.

Main Results

Wisecow Health enables farmers to increase their youngstock groups up to ten times while detecting health problems earlier. It significantly reduces calf diseases and mortality rates and helps to eliminate group disease outbreaks. It has also introduced automatic precision constant health monitoring, including during cross-industry transport and stress. Earlier discovery and finding brings better animal health and wellbeing, smaller drug usage and fosters reliable and sustainable animal husbandry.

Wisecow Find introduced a simple and effective solution for quickly locating animals using LED light signals, and its paper-free workflow app makes operating the LED light system intuitive and user-friendly. It enables animals to be found 50% faster, saving several months of work annually. Generally, each delayed discovery costs the farmer through additional treatment or production drop, and through additional feeding to nourish animals back to health.

Both Wisecow solutions create increased farm resilience as tasks can be completed even with less experienced staff, decrease unnecessary waste and support effective farm performance management. They have been shown to improve overall performance and help to attract young people to join animal husbandry.

Key lessons

A key obstacle was the lack of EU-level legislation or standardised rules to ensure data interoperability between different farm systems. This gap placed an additional burden on project developers.

There is also no global consensus on the indicators for assessing animal welfare using digital tools, or sufficient validation studies conducted on farms. While technologies exist to monitor many welfare aspects, effective rapid detection of sick animals remains limited. As Wisecow Health offers continuous 24/7 monitoring from the earliest days of a calf’s life – something unprecedented – there are no existing standards or extensive knowledge to guide the interpretation of this novel health data.