Founded in 2020, 701x is advancing autonomous agriculture with its industry-leading GPS enabled smart ear tags for cattle.
From his bustling office in downtown Fargo, Vice President of Business Development Max Cossette opens an app, displaying cattle roaming the 701x test ranch in the Badlands of western North Dakota. Cossette monitors each animal’s GPS location, travel patterns, health status, and even breeding occurrences.
“Ranchers are busy, and data collection is time-consuming, so we're working hard to make that process easier and more automated,” says Cossette. “Our flagship product is a cellular and satellite enabled GPS ear tag. The satellite capability allows it to check in even in the most remote areas with no cell service. The tags are solar powered, so no need for ranchers to waste time charging batteries.”
The innovative ear tags function similar to a smart watch, but for cattle herds. Tag sensors gather data, tracking movement and heart rate of each animal. These data points determine when and where the animal is eating, ruminating, walking, and resting. Data deviations trigger alerts such as illness due to inactivity, possible predators due to high activity, and trailer transport due to high speed. The tag also generates daily mount count reports for bulls, so producers can quickly and easily see which are being most productive and ineffective in their herd.
“The tag takes a GPS position every five minutes and checks to see if the tag is within its designated fence with immediate out-of-fence alerts,” says Cossette. “Ranchers like to know their bulls are working to expand their own calf crop and not their neighbors.”
With support from the North Dakota Development Fund, 701x recently acquired DigitalBeef, a cattle and sheep registry platform with over 9,000 ranches registered. This acquisition will soon allow ranchers to transfer data from the 701x app directly into their association’s registry software with a single click, eliminating manual spreadsheet transfers.
“Our mission is to empower the livestock industry and promote operational efficiency,” says Cossette. “Our clients tell us that even a few older cowboys more resistant to change and technology have found our software to be valuable, intuitive, and easy to use. We love to hear it.”
For more information on 701x, visit www.701x.com