Smarter Sensors in the Weaner Sheds: Why We Are Trialling iMonnit

I hope everyone is well.

It continues to be very warm here in Essex. Winter barley is really moving on quickly. A few more weeks like this and I think we will be harvesting some of it in week two or three of July. That is earlier than feels comfortable, but we will be ready when it goes.

Why we are upgrading the monitoring

While we are on the topic of heat, we are in the process of putting in a more advanced monitoring system across all our weaner accommodation.

Previously, the setup was straightforward. We had an alarm system with programming and temperature displayed on the control panel attached to the building. If we had a power failure, I got a notification on my phone. There is nothing wrong with that system in principle. It does the basics, and it does them reliably.

The limitation is that, if you want to look back at temperatures for a particular batch of pigs, or check live temperatures from off-site, you cannot. The data lives on the panel, in the moment, and that is it.

For us, that has become the wrong trade-off. Pigs are sensitive to what is happening around them, and the more we can understand about the environment in a building, the better the decisions we can make about it.

What we are trialling

I talked it through with Matt at MVG Electrical, who is excellent at sorting anything electrical on the farm and at bringing in new technology when it earns its place. He did some further research and came back with a system called iMonnit.

We are currently trialling our first two sensors. During testing, the upper and lower limits triggered the right notifications, and so far it has all worked as it should. That is a small sample, but it is encouraging.

Where this could go

What interests me is not just the temperature side of it. The same monitoring platform can take other sensors, and there are a few obvious places to start.

Air quality and lighting are two of the most useful. If we can move from routine spot checks to constant monitoring, we can pick up high and low points and measure how things actually fluctuate through the day. That is data we have never really had.

The step beyond that is letting the sensors become the tool that fixes the issue, rather than just flagging it. As an example, a sensor recognises that light levels are not where we want them for that time of day, and triggers the lighting to intensify, bringing things back to where they should be. That is not a huge technological leap. It is genuinely available, and the case for it gets stronger the more you look into the supporting research.

What the research is starting to show

The research I have come across on light intensity and timing in pigs is still limited, but the early findings are worth taking seriously.

Higher levels of luminous intensity appear to have a positive effect in finishers, particularly at the heaviest end. In newly weaned pigs, a longer lighting period for the first 24 hours after weaning has been associated with pigs settling more quickly, more visits to the feeders, and higher feed intakes. On the breeding side, a longer lighting period during the first two to three weeks of lactation looks to help stimulate suckling, with the lighting period potentially swapping round (hours of light to hours of dark) for the final week.

None of this is settled science, and we will not be making big calls on the back of a handful of studies. What it does tell us is that environment is doing real work in these buildings, and that getting better at measuring it is probably worth the effort.

A small admission

I have tried adjusting the lighting intensity on my laptop screen as it has got later in the day, and it is certainly increasing my need to have a beer. So clearly the technology works on humans, too.

We will report back as the trial progresses. If you are thinking about environmental monitoring on your own buildings, or want to talk through what we have learned so far, get in touch.