Photo: Supplied/Matthew Zonderop
A Waikato farmer created what he says is essentially Tinder for cows, after a spreadsheet error caused him to lose the breeding data for his herd.
Matthew Zonderop, a 50-50 sharemilker, previously used multiple spreadsheets and coding to track his herd, insemination, and make genetic improvements.
But after an error in his coding saw his system no longer working, he turned to artificial intelligence and ChatGPT, which he had previously played around with but not in a work capacity.
After the AI powered tool fixed the code he uploaded the entire spreadsheet and realised it could do it all for him.
He said he hadn't looked back, launching his business Perfect Cow Breeding Solutions at Fieldays earlier this year to help other farmers.
It removed the hassle of spreadsheets and helped farmers breed better cows by choosing the right bull.
"Basically, it's a matchmaking service for dairy farmers and their cows.
"Most cows throughout New Zealand are DNA profiled, and they give specific trait data on cows, so her protein levels, her fat levels, gestation length, live weight, and they are given to us into our herd records.
"So each cow has got its own head record and we can extract that data and then analyse it.
"It was always available to us, but we really, I suppose, didn't have the tools available to analyse it the way we are now with using AI."
