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As cow number 2073 makes her way out of the milking shed and passes in front of a nearby camera, the computer identifies her and watches every step.

Simply adding grooves to the concrete on which cows walk to and from the milking shed, can improve their stability and reduce their chance of becoming lame, he says.

But the cows, driven by instinct or panic, had done the absolute wrong thing during the night — they broke through the fence and headed downslope toward the milking shed, a place they had come to associate with shelter and food.

“We can monitor how long the cow is drinking for, how much it’s eating, how many times a day it visits the trough,” Zhao said as the cows walked in a row from their outdoor pen toward the milking shed.

He gave invaluable advice, pitched in on construction projects - the milking shed, the chicken coop, drainage issues - and quickly came to admire Patel, who was lugging 80-pound bags of concrete alongside him.