Cow with
I grew up on a cattle ranch until I was about 12, so I know a bit about how cattle behave. How they can’t figure out how to walk backwards, for instance, and so will starve to death if they put their heads through the fork in a tree to eat the leaves. So when I read this story about a GPS system for cattle, it made me smile — hey, why didn’t someone think of that a long time ago?
The lonesome cowboy with a guitar is not where the US Cattlemen Association has their gaze fixed right now — more like an up-to-date cowboy with a scanner. http://www.uscattlemen.org/
http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/02/smallbusiness/cow_gps.fsb/index.htm
Not sure that the cattle industry is ready for this kind of fast-forward device, but the RFID approach of companies like Digital Angel (Nasdaq: DIGAD) are real-world, right-now steps in the right direction. Very like the chips that are put into Spot (or Duke, or whatever the dog’s name is), these chips help track beef cattle from the range to the meatpacker. Have a look while you munch on your hamburger. http://www.digitalangel.com/
SmallCapWorld 