How to Follow Something in Digestion Tube

How much is the cow worth (in survival or dollars), how much does a vet cost, and how much can you scrape together?

You need a vet who can tell you where the blockage is, just by the touch (experience). ASAP (As Soon As Possible).

The cow dosn't have a problem with that, The raison of the study is to calculte the time it takes for a portion of nutriment to move from a specific place to an other. we just want to follow it and mesure what potion is absorbed. i'm thinking of kind of sensor.

You could use an portable ultrasound machine and follow a swallowed 3/8" ball bearing. You could use a metal detector with a small search coil over the feces to see when the bearing was eliminated.

if you could x-ray the cow periodically, you could follow a tungsten ball quite easily.

If not perhaps a small radio transmitter with external direction finders in three different axes?

Also have you thought about ultrasound?

Good luck JohnT

There are now small TV cameras which can be swallowed by a human to take photos all the way through the allimentary canal. The O/P is received by a digital recorder and displayed on a computer monitor.

Cameras are disposable and get flushed down the loo, but maybe cows are not as fussy about preloved cameras

Are there swallowable cameras with microphones as well? If so, what is their audio bandwidth?

Thanks,

-- Rob

http://www.hoise.com/vmw/00/articles/vmw/LV-VM-08-00-25.html

I googled "swallowable Cameras" and got the above sire which describes the device.

It doesn't mention a microphone, dont think gastrpods are interested in the noise made by ulcers and the like, they just want to view them.

Do you want to feed such a device to someone and eavesdrop??

The smart pill uses basic radio technology in a sealed "pill" that will be easy for a cow to swallow and pass. Should give you all the information you need.

If the cow has a magnetic slug in it's first stomach it may have to be removed so that the pill isn't captured by the slug.

http://www.smartpillcorp.com/

I thought the poster was most interested in knowing the time a food was spent in each stomach compartment. Reading about the smart pill, I don't see how that would be able to give you location tracking data, especially in a cow, which has a stomach unlike a human. With a swallowed metal marble, you would have to use a Xray(cat scanner) but very impractical, or ultrasound(most likely), or a metal detector with pin point capability(cheapest). An RFID tag would not work, since you could not pin point the exact location.

A company called Calypso make a system for accurately tracking movements of the prostate for radiotherapy. It consists of 3 tranplanted radio transponders and an array of transmit/receiving antennae. Works in real time to an accuracy of a mm in 3 axes.

Perhaps an adaptation of the ideas behind this technology would suit yoour requirements