Risks relevant to cattle farming can be categorised as follows:

• Climate: Cold and heat fronts, extreme temperature fluctuations, heat stress due to the lack of shade, etc.
• Disease: losses to disease due to late identification and inability to locate the source.
• Production: loss of production due to heat stress, weight loss due to travel distances, kraaling practices, etc.
• Fire: the destruction of animals and grazing by random fires caused by lightning and arsen.
• Pot theft: periodical theft of the odd one or two animals by locals.
• Group theft: animals stolen by the truck load or large groups of animals driven off in single events.
• Natural predation: eg.: a leopard feeding on a single calf and only on rare occasion.
• Culling predation: stray dogs, caracal, etc. are prone to maiming large numbers of animals at random.
• Terrain: mud, holes, crevices, cliffs, gullies, rivers, mudslides, etc.
• Straying: creeping through or jumping fences, following other animals, -people or -feed wagons, wandering animals lost during forced herding in dense bush., etc.
• Trapping: wire snares, loose barbed fence wires, deep mud, crevices, holes, debris, etc.
• Genetic: inbreeding, birth defects, abortions, sterility, deformity, etc.
• Indigestion: eating debris, poisonous plants, hair balls, wire, cloth, etc.

For each type of risk and combinations thereof HOTGROUP developed practical and affordable loss risk management solutions. Total elimination of loss risk is NOT implied as this is impossible to achieve. Risks can be managed whereby losses can ultimately be limited and lowered to affordable/acceptable levels, but there are no guarantees that your risk management program will be flawless. The flexibility of the HOTSURE offerings enable you to adjust your risk management plan to suit your dynamic risk profile. Only once a HOTSURE risk management system has been implemented on your cattle will you truly appreciate the true level of risk to your cattle. Before then risk profiling can only be done on perceived statistics and gut instincts. When the data starts streaming in we all stand more often than not amazed at the true extend of the risk. How is this possible you may wonder as "you know your cattle" and your losses for that matter? The truth is that very few farmers have seen what their cattle are exposed to at night, every night, especially during weather. Some farmers never now how active and extensive their grazing and production behaviour is during the cool of the night. This production related activity is the financial gain lost to the farmer who kraal at night. With HOTSTOCK collars it is rarely necessary to kraal and is mostly limited to areas where large predators such as lion, leopard, cheetah and dogs are resident.

Cattle in general do stray from the main group beyond visual range. Animal spacing is generally governed by the availability of good grazing, camp size, group age dynamics, season, climate, breed, general threat perception, level of habituation to humans and predators, farming practice, etc.. We classed them into two main groups namely intensive and extensive cattle farming.

Intensive farming is where the animals exhibit a high level of habituation towards humans, food is ample and water is readily accessible. These animals are usually kept in relative small camps and kraaled at night. This type of farming poses the highest form of risk and losses due to disease, predation and theft are usually high.

Extensive farming is where the animals exhibit a low level of habituation towards humans, food is scarce and water points are remote. These animals are usually kept in large camps and roam free at night. This type of farming poses the lowest form of risk and losses due to disease, predation and theft are usually limited to single individuals.

Note: Other factors that also have a significant impact on risk profile include proximity to borders, nature reserves, game farms, dumping sites, broken terrain, towns, roads and railway lines.

How it works: A cattle group and/or age group no larger than 35 individuals is monitored by one or more collars depending on the risk profile dynamics. Dummy collars are used in cases where theft is part of the risk profile and the deterrent level posed by multiple collar use justify the cost saving. Information is relayed from the collar via the HOTNET GSM and or VHF gateway networks to the HOTEYE system. The data is then decrypted, decoded and interpreted by the HOTEYE system. The data is then processed according to the user profile settings and displayed. Alarm events are displayed by HOTEYE on-screen and also sent via SMS, MMS, e-mail and automated voice call to the nominated receivers. This complete sequence of events take mere seconds to complete and is therefore qualified as near real-time monitoring.

The collars can be reprogrammed and reconfigured over the air via mobile phone or logging on to HOTEYE. We currently offer 6 options of monitoring your pro-active risk management system responses.

1) By logging on to www.hoteye.co.za for PC, laptop and advance mobile phone device for live on-screen alarm notification, display and dismissal.
2) By logging on to www.hoteye-lite.co.za for mobile phone and PDA use.
3) Via SMS and MMS notifications to your mobile phone.
4) Via E-mail to your Blackberry, mobile phone, laptop, PDA or PC.
5) Via land line auto voice calls.
6) Via a 3rd party such as a security service provider.

You will note that the system does not necessitate the need for any form of control room nor any dedicated staff. A farmer can monitor his cattle from any where in the world 24/7. Most of us carry a mobile phone and therefore in the event of an alarm the MMS provides a detailed descr6iption of the alarm with a supporting map extract where the animal is at that very moment plus some prior movement history. There are therefore no time consuming login's to remote systems nor the need to carry bulky laptops around.