What’s a livestock researcher’s version of adult summer camp? It’s called Cows and Code– a week-long intensive school that provides researchers with the skills needed to use precision livestock technologies such as GPS collars and behavioral sensors in their programs. The first annual school was held in August 2026 at Oklahoma State University and co-taught by researchers from US universities and Central Queensland University in Australia. Participants were a mix of PhD students and university faculty from institutions all over the country, including UC Davis, Texas A&M, Michigan State, Cornell, and many more.
We jumped right into the action on day one, learning how to build research-grade GPS collars and attach accelerometer sensors to livestock ear tags. This was an encouraging activity, as seeing these technologies broken down into their individual components helped us realize their relative simplicity. Things got more complicated in the following days as we spent time in the classroom learning about data management and processing, as well as behavioral modeling. One of the challenges of research with on-animal sensors is managing the vast amount of data available- a 1-Hertz accelerometer worn by a single animal will produce over 30 million rows of data per year!
The extensive amount of data collected from precision technologies can be used by researchers for many purposes, such as quantifying grazing behaviors, building machine-learning models for behavior prediction, or identifying patterns related to stress and illness. For producers, this information can lead to more efficient and informed management decisions about their animals’ health, nutrition, and reproduction.
One of the highlights of the week was visiting OSU’s Bluestem Research Range to see sensor ear tags and GPS collars in action. This included learning about how to validate these technologies through visual observation. This step isn’t complicated; it mostly entails sitting out in the field jotting down the cows’ behavior with timestamps to match the visual observations to the data collected by the sensors.
This led to the scientific endeavor of contemplating questions such as “how do we objectively define ‘grazing’?” Needless to say, this livestock nerd thoroughly enjoyed spending the day in a cow pasture among other researchers who get excited by these sorts of discussions.
Another highlight was seeing a multi-species virtual fencing project with cattle, sheep, and goats all sporting GPS collars and grazing as one herd. This really showed the broad range of utility of this technology, and allowed us to have our burning questions answered, like “which species learned how to respect the virtual fence boundaries the quickest?” (answer: sheep).
One of the key activities of the week was the “Three-Minute Muster”, where each day a portion of the participants gave a three-minute presentation on precision technology research they are currently working on or hoping to work on in the future. Topics ranged from genetic evaluation of beef cattle to disease detection in dairy cattle to mapping grazing behavior of sheep in vineyards. This was a great opportunity to get feedback and ideas related to our research and learn about what others in the industry are working on.
What really inspired me about the workshop? Looking around to see an equal number of women and men, and getting to learn from Dr. Anita Chang of Central Queensland University, a true whiz at sensor data analytics and a great representative of women in ag tech.
It’s an exciting time in the world of precision livestock technologies as an increasing number of producers are adopting these tools and researchers are exploring how these technologies can streamline management and improve animal welfare. Cows and Code is set to take place in Australia in 2027.
