Evaluation of the effectiveness of pH and rumination monitoring in cow feeding control

The study compares two technologies of precision animal husbandry — the SCR Heatime collar (Allflex Livestock Intelligence, Israel) and the “Agrobiotest” bolus (“Agrobiotest” LLC, Russia) — for monitoring the physiological state of dairy cows. The experiment was conducted on 10 Holstein cows at the KubSAU farm. The cicatricial bolus demonstrated high accuracy (97.8%) in measuring the pH of the scar, which is critically important for assessing the acidity and health of the gastrointestinal tract. The SCR Heatime collar (Allflex Livestock Intelligence, Israel) proved to be more effective for tracking rumination (89.4%), which allows monitoring eating behavior. The combined use of the devices increased the overall accuracy of diagnosing the metabolic status of cows to 98.5%, providing a more complete picture of the animals’ condition. A moderate correlation (r = 0.73) was found between the rumination activity and the pH level, which confirms the relationship between eating behavior and metabolic processes. The study confirms that the integration of data from different sensors (collars and boluses) makes it possible to increase the effectiveness of early diagnosis of metabolic disorders and optimize diets. The results obtained open up prospects for the creation of digital animal twins, which contributes to the development of precision animal husbandry.