Cow calving is one of the most difficult jobs for dairy farmers. Calving season is quite laborsome, as cows must be checked day and night. Every year, 130,000 cows die from labor accidents, resulting in over a 120 million dollar loss for the industry.

The Mobile Gyu-on-kei is a cow temperature sensor that can check the health status by inserting it into the cow’s behind. Although the Mobile Gyu-on-kei’s could help prevent labor accidents, the health data was not used to its full potential and was not widely spread among dairy farmers.

What if people can communicate with a cow’s buttocks? We created a cow’s healthcare app for dairy farmers that receives real-time from the Mobile Gyu-on-kei throughout the calving process, and reports the current health status through an intuitive interface that features a cow’s butt character.

The temperature sensor inserted into the cow’s buttocks detects the health status such as “in heat,” “water break,” “abnormality” and sends it to the app. The app informs that status through the cow butt character interface. The dairy farmer can receive real-time health status reports of the cow.

By converting the cow’s temperature data into a character showing different expressions and movements, the dairy farmer can work more quickly, efficiently, and feel closer to the cow even more during the calving process. The app is currently in test-use at the Kyoto Agricultural School. To promote the Mobile Gyu-on-kei, we created a digital animation film and digital picture book that featured the cow but character “COWBUM”.

COWBUM was picked up by 150+ media outlets, with the AVE of $410,000. At educational institutions, the app is utilized in the education of cow calving. And finally, the animation film and picturebook contributed to the recruitment for the dairy farming and livestock industry, where successors were decreasing.