Microchips for Cow Monitoring

Nexa Labs announced the launch and initial deployments of its groundbreaking implantable cattle monitoring system: the first of its kind to deliver real-time health and reproductive insights from inside the animal.

While smart collars and ear tags rely on surface-level activity data, and boluses are expensive, short-lived, and permanently trapped in the animal, Nexa’s in-ear microchip implant captures vital internal signals - including temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, blood oxygen, activity, GPS location, and more - in an affordable and long-lasting package. Unlike older generations of cattle microchips cased in migration-prone glass that could only be used for animal ID, the Nexa microchip is enclosed in a highly biocompatible polymer specially designed for minimal migration from the injection site. This means it is safe and risk-free for all cattle including those that are intended for meat processing at end of life. The system also includes an AI-powered (artificial intelligence) dashboard integrated with existing herd management tools that enables powerful visualizations and natural-language based analysis of dairy data.

“Collars and tags miss early illness while constantly reporting false-positives for heat, decreasing trust in these tools over time. Boluses are exorbitant and have unsustainable battery life” said Zarif Azher, CEO and Co-Founder. “We built Nexa to empower dairy farmers with deeper, earlier, and more affordable insights.”

Nexa’s system enables early identification of diseases like mastitis and pneumonia, while also delivering accurate heat detection. For producers, this means faster and smarter cattle management. By analyzing more biometric data with higher accuracy, the system is also more robust than existing cattle monitoring devices that are known to produce frequent false positive results. “This sort of monitoring driven by microchips is exactly what I’ve been waiting for. It just makes sense,” said one dairy owner managing and consulting for nearly 40,000 head in California's Central Valley. And he’s not the only one - dairies from all around the world have expressed interest in trying the system on their own operations, with the current waitlist representing more than 200,000 head of cattle. Today, Nexa has begun deploying on herds in the West, with plans to rapidly scale up through the expanding waitlist in the coming months.

Alongside detecting health issues and heat, Nexa is excited by further opportunities on-farm and up the supply chain powered by the comprehensive health profiles their microchips can capture. For example, physiological measurements from the Nexa system can be used to improve genetic optimization by helping select animals with robust health profiles. Better feed additives and rations can be designed through large-scale analysis of measured health effects across different feed compositions. Furthermore, analysis of granular health profiles alongside milk quality data can yield improved predictors of output. Currently fully focused on dairy, future plans include expansion to cow-calf and feedlot operations.

Alvin Zhang, CTO and Co-Founder of Nexa described their implantable microchips as the natural evolution of cow monitoring. “Wearable devices and boluses were important first-attempts to help farmers with animal monitoring. As their limitations have become apparent, we are confident that microchips are the natural next step for the industry. We look forward to the prospect of collaborating with other companies and stakeholders to continue driving gains in efficiency for dairies everywhere.”

To join the waitlist for the Nexa cattle monitoring system, dairy owners or managers should reach out via email to admin@nexa.farm or call 925-475-9601. Program participation is open while spots remain.

AI Dairy Copilot

In addition to the breakthrough cattle monitoring system, Nexa is also announcing the launch of Daisy, a free AI copilot for DairyComp. Daisy empowers anyone – owners, herd managers, consultants, nutritionists, vets, and others – to write DairyComp macros and analyze dairy data with natural language. Rather than guessing at the correct commands and syntax, or dealing with messy Excel spreadsheets, Daisy enables rapid macro generation, statistical modeling, visualization, and data-driven insights in minutes instead of hours or days. AI tools like ChatGPT are revolutionizing countless industries. With Daisy, Nexa aims to help the dairy industry gain real benefit from this transformative technology. The platform is driven by a new AI method termed “agents”, where specialized AI systems can read data, write code to preprocess and analyze it, and answer complex user questions through step by step reasoning.

Existing dairy data analysis tools often require certain up-to-date versions of herd management software like DairyComp for connection. This can be mismatched with reality on the ground, where farms commonly have older versions of software that has not necessarily been frequently updated. Daisy is compatible with all levels by operating on exported outputs rather than solely direct data streaming. Such backwards-compatibility allows all dairies to begin saving time with the platform regardless of their previous technology adoption.

In the coming months, Daisy will expand to support more herd management systems and direct integrations with these tools. The first version of Daisy is already live - anyone can sign up and begin using it within minutes by visiting https://daisy.nexa.farm/.

About Nexa Labs

Founded by Caltech engineers, Nexa Labs develops implantable cattle monitoring systems and software that deliver health and reproductive insights in real time - giving producers better insight with less effort at a fraction of the cost. Nexa is proudly founded, based, and made in the USA.

Email: admin@nexa.farm

Phone: 925-475-9601

Website: https://nexa.farm/