A new invention, 'Water Rat', is the only rodent farmers would like to see in their water troughs.
The device is placed in a water trough or tank and notifies a farmer when there's an issue and it is empty.
Inventor Nick Seymour presented his gadget for farmers at the recent Future Ag Expo in Melbourne and spoke to Stock & Land.
He said the technology was simple and worked for all types of farmers.
"Technically, it's really just a level that floats," he said.
"People know inside your mobile phone when you turn it, it changes from portrait to landscape - this has got the same thing.
"Every minute, it's accessing its angle of flotation and if it's past 30 degrees, we use that to signal that the trough is empty."
The turnip-sized conical device then sends a text message to the farmer alerting him or her to livestock without water, that the trough is emptying.
There were multiple reasons why having this sort of insight was more and more important to farmers.
"During the summer months, checking the water every single day is a routine part of farm life," said Mr Seymour.
"We get dry conditions every summer but it's getting harder because it's hard to get staff and there's labour shortages in the country.
"A lot of people that have expanded their land holdings, you can't often have the farm next door, so they'll have a block here and a block a couple of kilometres away.
"That all adds to the difficulty of trying to know how all your water is at a particular time."
He said the Water Rat gave farmers peace of mind.
Mr Seymour said the tool held within it a SIM card.
"It uses the Telstra or Optus network," he said.
"They have part of their 4G and 5G network which is for IOT or data.
"It sends the data further.
"If it's right on the edge of making a phonecall, you have no problem getting the data through."
He said the invention was being used by farmers "across the board".
"It goes from big farms that are trying to run their operations efficiently, right down to small farms where someone might have a job in town," he said.
"Then they don't have a chance to go out and check their animals every day.
"We've got some older farmers and they like the simplicity of it.
"They are sometimes challenged with finding new staff as well."
The Water Rat was priced at $599, however, this was a worthwhile investment according to Mr Seymour.
He spoke about the importance of having a simple approach when it came to encouraging farmers to adopt innovation
"It doesn't matter how many programmes you have to educate farmers, to get rid of these barriers, the product has got to be good to start with," he said.
"If you're solving a very complex problem, you just have to go back to the start and break that problem down a bit so that you can deliver a simpler solution."
