Abstract: Livestock may be managed by a variety of systems, processes, and techniques. In particular implementations, the properties of water may be monitored by automated techniques and treated water may be provided to animals. In certain implementations, sick, or potentially sick, livestock may be provided with treated water to improve their health. The automated techniques may include monitoring the movements and/or water consumption of the livestock and predicting which ones may be sick based on their movements and/or water consumption. In some implementations, a water trough may contain multiple segments. The water properties in the segments may be maintained at different states.

Abstract: An apparatus is capable of recovering signals from N sites, N.gtoreq.2, distributed along a single coaxial cable. This multiplexing technique allows the separation of signals from many transducers on one line. Time domain reflectometry (TDR) is used, with variable resistive elements distributed along the cable. TDR is used to detect discontinuities in the impedance of the cable as well as their specific location along the cable. The magnitude of these discontinuities is modulated by an impedance that is proportional to the applied signal. An excellent way of obtaining this kind of variable impendance along the line is to bias a field effect transistor (FET) so that it functions as a variable resistor. For a large number of signals to be multiplexed onto a coaxial cable, an FET is placed at each of the N signal sources. The coaxial cable has a characteristic impedance of Z.sub.o and the FET's are evenly spaced at a distance l.