Drones provide high-tech way of measuring bunk silo feed

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“Measuring the amount of feed in a bunk silo usually means getting on top of the feed and getting out the old measuring tape, yardstick or other measuring tool.

A new startup in upstate New York is trying to change the game by offering drone flights to measure bunk feed amounts and other data.

Aurox, located in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., started test flights in 2017 and made its first commercial flight on a 700-cow dairy in Washington County last year. Today, the company has done drone flights on 100 farms in New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont, with 10 farms getting regular flights, according to Adam Durrin, co-founder of Aurox.

He says the drones can give nearly exact measures of bunk feed volume, down to 1-inch accuracy, in a 10-minute flight.

Durrin, who founded a drone company before co-founding Aurox, says the technology was developed after getting in touch with nutritionists. It then evolved into getting precise measurements of bunk feed volume to measure out feed inventories in the future.“