Drones or Satellites: Which to Choose for Counting Cattle on Your Operation

Cattle owners, as well as their accountants and lenders, are turning to aerial imagery for efficient verification of livestock inventory.  The most common forms of aerial imagery used for counting livestock are drone imagery and satellite imagery.  But which type of imagery is better: drones or satellites?   There are a number of factors to consider when comparing drones with satellites: efficiency of image capture, image quality, the ability to see … Read more

Why Use Drones for Livestock Collateral Verification?

In light of recent scandals where banks were defrauded tens of millions of dollars due to “ghost cattle”, more and more banks are implementing better collateral verification processes. One step in this direction is improving livestock counting processes by using drones. In a test that CattleQuants performed to evaluate how accurately people can estimate cattle numbers, cattle owners consistently underestimated the number of cattle on a ranch, sometimes by as … Read more

Flying Into the Wind: Can You Fly Your Drone on a Windy Day?

Have you ever wondered how windy is too windy to fly your drone?  If you’re in the Great Plains, wind is something you need to contend with daily, but even in relatively still country high winds can occur.  The question is: At what point do you need to stop flying your drone? Many of the most common, well-priced drones—including the DJI Mavic series and the DJI Air 2S—are built for … Read more

Visit CattleQuants Booth at NCBA to Win a FREE Feedyard or Ranch Inspection

 – Cattle Counting Contest! –  Stop by Booth #1943 to enter the first-ever Cattle Counting Contest! Challenge yourself to guess the number of cattle in a pasture or feedyard pen. The entry with the closest guess will win a free cattle inspection*!  *Feedyard limited to 50,000 head capacity; ranch limited to 500 acres. Feedyard or ranch must be located within the contiguous United States and outside of restricted airspace. CattleQuantsTM … Read more

CattleQuants Receives $1 Million Grant

The CattleQuants Team is excited to announce the award of nearly $1 million in grant funding from the National Science Foundation through the Small Business Innovation Research program.  These funds will be used to further develop the CattleQuantsTM technology and will empower us to provide our customers with more insight into cattle inventories, livestock weight, and cattle health in real-time. The key objectives for this project are: 1. Develop methods for … Read more

CattleQuants now offers full-service feedlot inspections and reports

In addition to counting cattle on feedyards, we also verify cattle lot numbers and measure stockpile volumes. Feedyard Inventory Reports Our drones acquire photos of every single pen, and our AI models automatically count the cattle in each pen. You can now get a snapshot and headcount of every single pen–regardless of feedyard size–all in one day. Cattle Lot Number Matching Need to verify cattle presence down to the lot … Read more

Drone-Based Livestock Inspections are a Win-Win

Livestock inspections are now being performed remotely–and not just due to COVID-19. Until recently, livestock appraisers would visit feedlots and ranches to perform their appraisals, which involves visual assessment to estimate cattle inventories.  At large feedlots where an exhaustive appraisal is next to impossible without unlimited time, only a fraction of feedlot pens would be sampled for inspection.  All that changed when the pandemic hit and many lenders deferred their … Read more