Using cameras to monitor cows during winter calving saves time and labour, and also saves ranchers trips outside during cold weather. Three ranchers from northwestern Saskatchewan share their experiences with and tips for using calving cameras.
Nesset Lake Angus
Julie and Ivan Demmans of Nesset Lake Angus have 170 registered Black Angus cows and 100 commercial cows. They bought their first calving cameras in 2012, and soon found the cameras made calving season easier, saving them trips to the barn, says Ivan.
“You can watch through the entire calving process and make sure a calf is coming properly,” he says. The less you disturb them, the more likely they will go ahead and calve, without becoming upset. You can also watch and see if the calf gets up and nurses.
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The Denmans’ herd starts calving in January, when temperatures often dip to -30 C or lower.
“Even though the cows are in the barn, we still need to keep an eye on them when it’s that cold,” says Julie. They need to make sure newborn calves nurse quickly, before they get chilled, so they have enough energy to keep warm, she adds.
They also put cows in a lean-to built onto the barn. The camera sits on the barn wall in a way that allows them to watch the cows in the lean-to as well as the barn.
“If necessary, we can put 10 to 15 head in the barn and the lean-to will hold up to 30 head with loose housing,” says Ivan. This gets them closer to the barn and if a calf comes as a surprise, it’s out of the wind and snow.
The Denmans had been pondering buying an outside camera for a few years, but the expense held them back. In 2016, they purchased a camera to monitor the large area that includes their calving pens outside.
“The farthest one is 200 yards away and we can still see if something is happening out there — and it shows up better at night with the infrared,” Ivan says.
“You can’t have a camera too close to a yard light, however, or it interferes with the infrared. We have the outside one on top of our power pole that has the yard light, but the camera is 10 feet above the light,” he says. With the light not shining directly on it, this doesn’t interfere with the camera.
Both the indoor and outdoor cameras are infrared, but the barn camera has only a 10x zoom and the outside one is a 30x zoom. A joystick in the house allows them to control the zoom feature. They can also switch between the two cameras.
“In the daytime, you can zoom in close enough to see fence posts half a mile away,” says Ivan. However, blind spots behind windbreaks and other obstacles mean they still sometimes have to go outside.
“Sometimes when a cow is in the barn calving you can’t see right behind her,” says Julie. “If she doesn’t get up right away you don’t know if the calf is born or if the sac is over the head. You still need to go out to check on things like that, but the camera allows you to monitor what’s happening and decide whether you need to go out. Some of those old cows can look pretty innocent when you go out, and you wouldn’t know they are calving, and as soon as you come back in and check the screen, they are calving.”
Last year they saved a cow that got over-centred and stuck on her back. “Just by chance Ivan was showing me something on the camera and doing a sweep on the pen, and we saw four feet up in the air. We got out there in time to save her, but she was in the farthest corner of the pen and we would not have noticed her except for the camera,” Julie says.
Ivan managed to pull the cow around. Julie then noticed the cow was calving.
“It was dark and we hadn’t seen it, and when we did, it was backward. I grabbed its feet and pulled it out, and it was still alive. So we saved both the cow and the calf, thanks to the camera,” Ivan says.
The cameras have allowed them save a calf many times. Sometimes a heifer will just lie there instead of getting up when the calf is born, and the sac is still over the calf, with fluid around its head. And some cows stand up too soon and dump the calf on its head, with the body doubled over.
“Ivan will be going out there to help the calf, and I’ll be watching on the camera. Some of those calves can wiggle around and be okay, or the cow will be smart enough to start licking and rooting and get the calf straightened out and flipped over,” says Julie.
The picture can be viewed on a television set. “If we are watching TV, every time there’s an ad or commercial we look at the other one and scan all the cows,” he says.
Sometimes when Ivan is feeding he puts a cow in the barn. “I can phone Julie in the house and tell her I put a cow or heifer in the barn and Julie can watch her so I can keep feeding. One time I was out feeding and drove through the yard and Dad was out on the deck waving at me, and said there was a cow having a calf backward,” Ivan says.
Several companies sell cameras. Ivan looked at cameras during Agribition and talked to other people who used them. “We got ours from a company in Manitoba called Allen Leigh Security, but now there are more people selling them,” Ivan says.
“As we get older, these cameras allow us to keep doing what we do, for longer,” Julie says. “It really helps, to not have to keep going out there so much in the cold. It’s hard to believe how much it can help until you actually get one. I always tell Ivan that this was the best money he ever spent.”
Wright Ranch
Jim and Kirsten Wright have a seedstock operation near Meadow Lake, Sask., raising registered Red Angus and a few registered Black Angus. Their cows start calving the second week of January.
This is the third winter they’ve had a camera system. They chose cameras designed to work in cold, wind and snow. They have a camera with a 360-degree range in the barn, giving them a full view of the barn.
Outside, they have the same camera type. Both cameras are 10x zoom, with night vision as far as the zoom can reach. The outside camera is mounted under the eaves of the barn. There are no blind spots in the calving pens and it’s easy to see everything with the camera at that height.
The cows go into a 30-acre trap before Christmas so the Wrights can keep an eye on them. “We’ve had cows that calved ahead of the starting date — like cows with twins, or some with shorter gestation. With these cameras we catch most things, so we don’t have to go out there at night to check,” Wright says.
“We have three pens in front of the barn when we start calving — bred heifers ready for their first calves, two-year-olds having their second calves and mature cows. We can see everything in that yard and down to our bull yard.”
He and Kristen both work off-farm full-time, so in addition to being able to view images on their TV, they have the cameras hooked up to Wi-Fi so they can monitor the herd with cellphones. They keep the cows closest to calving in the barn during the day.
“This is the only way both of us can work off-farm and still calve. The farm is only 20 minutes from town, so if there’s a cow calving outside in the middle of the day and I see her on camera, I can be home by the time it’s born, and the calf won’t have to be outside in the cold very long,” he says.
Wright says the only downfall to having the cameras connected to their phones and TV is that they tend to watch them too much.
“We’ll sit and watch a cow calve and start wondering if she’s taking too long or having trouble, so we’ve had to learn patience.”
Watching the cameras is like sitting in the barn watching a cow calve, but it’s nice to be able to do it in a warm living room. “The calving probably goes a little faster when we’re not out there because there’s less disruption for the cow.”
Wright says the system has paid for itself “over and over again.” In fact, the first camera paid for itself the first week.
“A cow was trying to have a breech calf and I was watching her on the camera. Otherwise, I might have left her too long, and would have lost the calf before deciding to check her.”
Ogilvie Ranch
Carmen and Gerry Ogilvie have a commercial cow-calf operation near Meadow Lake, Sask., with 200 cows. They start calving in mid-February, and got their first camera eight years ago.
“We started with just one outdoor camera with a hand-held zoom that we control from inside the house with a joystick,” says Carmen Ogilvie. The camera has infrared imaging which helps at night. They also added spotlight-type lighting to better illuminate the area at night, allowing them to see well to the far end of the pen, about 120 yards away.
“We do a night-feeding program so more of the cows calve during the day than at night. During the day they are locked in the bedding pen with the bedding pile and water. At 6 p.m. we open a gate into the feed pen which is about 300 feet long, with room for all of them to eat,” she says.
The outdoor camera helps them catch any cow that calves quickly or wasn’t showing signs on the last calving check, Ogilvie explains. They initially chose an outdoor camera, thinking that was all they’d need. But the next year, they decided to add a camera in the barn. The outdoor camera has a 25x zoom but they have a smaller one in the barn with a 10x zoom.
“We’re not going out so often and opening the door and disrupting the calving cows. Every time you open the door the cows look around to see what’s going on and may get up and delay calving. It’s better to not disturb them,” she says.
Two years later, they installed a camera in their second barn.
“My husband just turned 60 and I am 58 so we don’t have as much energy and endurance as when we were younger. The cameras make life easier. If he goes out to check on something, I can watch from here. The TV is set up in the kitchen-dining area and I can see what he’s doing. If I see him bringing a cow in or having trouble getting her in, I can quickly go out and help him; he doesn’t have to take time to call me on his cellphone. There’s also the safety aspect; if he’s having any kind of trouble, I’d know, or if I’m out checking the cows at night he could see if I need help,” she says.
Cameras don’t completely replace going outside to check on cows periodically, Oglivie says.
“At the start of calving, when all the cows are in those pens, a calving cow can hide behind other cows. The camera can’t look over top like a drone would,” she says.
The outdoor camera gives a good view, however, mounted at the highest peak of the nearby barn. While some people mount the camera on a pole so it can swivel 360 degrees, she says the 180-degree view covers the area they need to see. The cameras inside the barns are similarly mounted on a wall.
“When we get the camera pointed at a certain cow we usually leave it alone, because they can hear it move. Then they look at it and it may distract them.”
Even with the night-feeding program, there are still some that calve at night. The Ogilvies check the cameras frequently during the night. If nothing is happening, they can go back to bed.
“If a cow is calving and it’s a nice night she can stay out there, but we can still monitor to make sure the sac breaks and doesn’t stay over the calf’s head, or just watch her calve,” Ogilvie says.
The camera system has also enabled them to save calves in trouble. Ogilvie says they’ve made the “100-yard dash” from the house to barn when the sac hasn’t broken on a newborn calf.
“One time I was doing the camera check and saw a cow calving and just the head was out, no legs. We got out there in time to deal with that problem.”
Other benefits
Both the Wrights and Denmans find the cameras helpful when it’s time to AI cows.
“If I’m at work, I can periodically check cows just looking at my phone and catch the ones that start to show heat. We have improved conception rates on our embryo transfers because we typically put most of our embryos in on natural heats,” Wright says.
The cameras in the yard can also double as security cameras. Ivan says they can move them close to equipment. The system is also a handy way to see what’s happening in the yard, from coyotes to renegade cows.
“We use the camera often, even to see what the dog is barking at,” says Julie. “It might just be deer, but it’s good to know what’s going on. Sometimes the cows might be out, and we’d see that as well.”
The cameras are also a source of entertainment for the Denmans’ grandkids. “My dad likes to watch it too, and he’s in his 90s. He still enjoys the cows even if he isn’t able to go out there,” says Ivan.
