Development of a New Model of Efficient Management of Extensive Meat Vaccine Flock, Based on the Individual Control of Each Animal (CIVEX)

Funding Entity: CDTI, research and development project.
Reference: IDI-20180354 y IDI-20180355
Responsible company: Aplifisa S.L. (Salamanca) y COPASA (Salamanca)
Subcontracted center: ITAP - University of Valladolid
Participating entity: Dehesa Carrascalino (Vega de Tirados - Salamanca) Finca en “Carrascal de Barregas” - Salamanca.
Duration: 01-January-2018 - 31-December-2020


The general objective of this project is the creation, development and implementation in the cattle sector of the extensive beef, of a new animal management and management system that allows: knowledge and improvement of the health status of the animals (through monitoring not invasive of physical and animal variables: heart rate, temperature, respiration), and allow work to improve the fertility and prolificacy rates of the livestock, optimize the management and control of livestock, and improve economic efficiency of livestock farms through control and cost savings.

This set of improvements is a priority for the livestock sector in cattle of extensive to achieve a model of sustainable development in livestock, from the point of view of animal welfare and the improvement of the efficiency of livestock farms, along with the improvement of reproduction rates.

In the extensive livestock sector, unlike other models of agricultural production (poultry or dairy), there has been no evolution in production systems from the techniques of animal management or from the perspective of the use of new technologies such as facilitator of daily work. For this reason, this project raises the need to, from the analysis of the current state of cattle production systems of extensive cattle, identify their problems and develop and implement new animal management and management systems through the use of the technological innovation, with the aim of facilitating the work of the rancher in favor of environmental sustainability and the profitability of farms.

To achieve this general objective it will be necessary the daily work of the team of veterinarians and technicians who will be responsible, for long periods of time, to visualize the animal behavior and collect the data of the different non-invasive sensors.

The purpose of this project is the development of a new animal management system that can be implemented in the beef cattle sector of extensive, national, European and international, which is placed at the forefront of the new livestock (livestock 4.0 or livestock precision), responding to the need to optimize the processes in animal management, not only in countries of our European environment, but also in countries as technologically advanced as Japan, or large producers of meat in an extensive nature such as Argentina or Colombia.

The implementation of this project will provide the beef cattle sector with extensive a set of advantages such as:

  • Real-time identification of the livestock herd.
  • Determination of the state of the animals and possible problems they have (diseases, help in births). Reduce the workload of the farmer by having to avoid animal counting operations.
  • Reduce the carbon footprint by using less machinery to search for animals.
  • Have the possibility of analyzing the production data and problems in the livestock herd by having quantitative information on which to work.