While the world was in lockdown in 2020, Jim Ryken started developing BarnTalk with BarnTools co-founder Michael Hansen. Growing up in the swine industry, they understood the shortcomings of traditional alarm systems that were created to protect barns and the livestock and poultry in them. Not only were these systems built in the 1990s outdated, but they were lacking reliability and remote visibility.
Ryken went to work during the COVID pandemic while he was home with his 13-year-old son and 70-year-old dad at the time to build a modern alarm system for livestock barns.
“My dad didn’t have a smartphone then,” Ryken says. “I knew if I could explain BarnTalk in a way that both my dad and son could understand, then I should be able to go talk to anybody in the industry and not make them be afraid of this technology.”
BarnTalk is a wireless alarm system that runs off an app on a cell phone, Ryken explains. He spent a lot of time thinking about how to make a system that is easy for farmers who don’t have a lot of time to use.
“I kept looking at consumer-grade User Interface (UI),” he says. “I kept thinking there had to be a way to feed those systems into animal agriculture to help with technology adoption. It is complicated, but it doesn’t have to look that way.”
Ryken says BarnTalk was developed to help improve operational efficiency and give growers a practical tool for monitoring what’s going on in their barns, especially when they’re not there.
“We didn’t have wireless communication when the first alarm systems were built,” he says. “We wanted to create a wireless system to do everything producers need from an alarming perspective, but also provide real-time insight like is it too hot in my barn? Are my pigs getting enough water?”
Reliable Return on Investment
In short, this technology can provide peace of mind to growers who no longer live right next to the barn, Ryken explains. But first, they had to solve the problem of connectivity on the farm.
“A lot of our early work was finding the right gateway that connects to all the cell towers and provides a connection to the internet from these rural areas that was never there before,” he says. “Once we solved that problem, we focused on building an app and getting wireless sensors in the barn that were easy to install.”
BarnTalk uses a DIY approach, Ryken explains. By creating something that is easy to install and has a ‘pretty low cost of entry,’ they wanted to provide tools that are not intimidating from a technical perspective or that will break their pocketbook.
That’s one of the reasons why Greg Wulf, director of production at Murphy Family Ventures LLC in southeast North Carolina, invested in this technology.
“We appreciate the simplicity, reliability and excellent customer service,” Wulf says.
For Wulf, the return on investment is what he appreciates most about making this purchase.
“In our situation, we did not have alarms to notify us of problems with power, environment or water,” Wulf says. “Barn Tools helps us avoid losses caused by equipment malfunction or operator error by notifying us of problems. Our ROI comes due to loss avoidance.”
As BarnTalk caught on with growers, BarnTools made a strategic pivot away from the challenges of steel manufacturing for hog gates in 2020 and focused their attention on providing technology for the grower.
Strategic Sensors
BarnTools recently launched a second-generation feed bin sensor, BinTalk Pro that gives farmers insight into how much feed is in the bin. The sensor takes a reading every 15 minutes to help producers quickly detect any potential concerns.
“With this tool, farmers can start problem solving sooner,” Ryken says. “Is the bin out of feed? Did the feed stop flowing? Am I seeing a rapid depletion of feed? Is the feed just disappearing and it shouldn’t be? The sooner farmers can know about these problems, the better they can react.”
Several bin sensors are in each bin and every sensor in the bin is connected through a cellular connection, Ryken explains.
“Instead of putting a SIM card in every bin, we use one SIM in the gateway,” he says. “It connects to the cloud and creates a wireless network on the farm, so all bin sensors report through it.”
He says this is how BinTalk Pro can take a reading every 15 minutes because it doesn’t need to ‘ring up the cell connection’ and send data all the time.
“We recognize the real-time advantage of knowing what’s going on,” Ryken says. “Most feed bin sensors take a reading once a day, or once every four hours. By taking a reading every 15 minutes, we can limit the time an ‘event’ affects your animals. We take what the sensor sees and turn that into smart alarms that we can send to the growers.”
But pork producers aren’t the only ones who can benefit. The integrator and feed mill benefit, too. Sensors can optimize feed deliveries, which cuts down on waste and fuel emissions.
“As a turn comes to an end, we can make sure we don’t overdeliver feed before animals are sent off to market and create a reclaim event,” Ryken says. “Bin Talk Pro is a tool that can be used by growers, but it can be used up the supply chain to improve all the things affecting the most expensive part of raising animals -- the feed.”
Water Watch
In the summer of 2022, Mike DeCap, vice president of crop and swine production at Grandview Farms Inc. in east central Iowa, says their farm became one of the first full-service adapters of BarnTalk.
“Getting updates every 15 minutes versus every four hours is the difference between seeing problems and solving them,” he says.
Grandview Farms strives to be on the forefront of technology to pick up efficiencies to raise a pound of pork and to protect their investments, DeCap explains.
“Once we met with BarnTools and learned that all employees could see into the finishers to visualize feed, temp, water and power, the decision was simple,” DeCap says.
Water meter sensors provide data to farmers every 15 minutes, too, Ryken says.
“It’s critical that your animals have the right amount of water and don’t run out,” he says. “If you have a water leak, you need to know about that fast or it could fill up your pit. Smart sensors notify you when leaks happen, so you don’t have to wait to find out when you get back to the farm the next morning.”
From a water perspective, Ryken is excited how sensors can help provide insights into pig health. BarnTools recently did some work with Brett Ramirez at Iowa State University. They watched a group of pigs get sick and how water consumption dropped off by about 25%. Within 48 hours, the caretaker had coughing pigs with scours, and the next day, some mortality.
“If you go back and look at the water data, two days before these clinical signs, we could have predicted this would happen,” Ryken says. “Water is such a powerful thing to monitor. I think it has the opportunity to change the way we medicate our animals whether that’s helping us medicate them earlier or treat them with something other than antibiotics to keep them from getting sick.”
He’s excited to see how data insight can continue to help the industry improve.
“We’re always listening to our customers about what data and sensors they need next,” Ryken says. “Sensors help us unlock potential in the industry that hasn’t been available before. There’s so much we can do with the data if we can get it off the farm. That’s really what we’re doing – helping get that data off the farm to ultimately help producers make better decisions.”
