Smart RFID Ear Tag Solution for Livestock Farm

Management-level UHF RFID ear tags plus gate readers for a large Australian cattle farm — replacing easy-to-fall plastic tags with 3–5 m batch identification and full traceability records.

Client Background

A cattle breeding farm with thousands of head, relying on manual visual-tag reading and paper records for health checks and breeding cycles.

Challenges

1. Old plastic tags broke and fell off; annual loss rate around 10%
2. Manual tag reading was slow and error-prone during musters
3. Tag IDs had to sync with the farm’s existing management software
4. Tags must survive years of rain, sun and animal rubbing

Our Solution

1. UHF management tag (ISO 18000-6C): engineered anti-break TPU structure, IP67, tag ID follows ISO 11784 numbering; optional dual-chip (LF 134.2 kHz) version for farms running official LF readers
2. Gate reader system: panel antennas at cattle race points — 3–5 m hands-free batch reading, hundreds of tags per pass
3. Data layer: reader software pushes ID + timestamp events to the farm system via API, with offline caching
4. Custom marking: laser engraving of farm ID + QR code on every tag

Results & Outcomes

• Tag annual loss rate reduced below 3%
• Muster identification time cut from ~2 days to ~3 hours (thousands of head)
• Zero typing — IDs flow directly into farm software, eliminating manual record errors
• Sample lead time 15 days; mass production 30 days (first batch 20,000 pcs)

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