Cows are creatures of habit. Inconsistencies in their daily schedules are bound to cause stress. Like humans, cows are exposed to stressors every day. The chronic effects of built-up stress may lead to negative metabolic changes in the cow and can have significant effects on their health and productivity. In a conventionally managed dairy, consistency […]
5 Ways Electronic Animal Monitoring Helps Reduce Veterinary Treatment Costs
Poor cow health poses a significant threat to profitability. When they’re sick, cows make less milk and require treatments that cost a lot of money. The sooner these sick cows can be brought back to full health with the least expensive treatment protocol, the smaller the economic impact the health issue has on the dairy. […]
Pen Movements and Profitability
Cow comfort is a key component in achieving and maintaining high milk production. One aspect of cow comfort that is typically underestimated in farms is the effect of pen movements on cows. It is very common for a new user to be surprised when they realize the negative impact pen changes have on cows. The […]
How Electronic Monitoring Improves Labor Efficiency
Labor is the second largest expense on a dairy after feed costs. The benefits of labor efficiency can total up to a sizeable contribution to a dairy’s bottom line. Labor efficiency is a function of four components: the operating process, training requirements, efficiency monitoring and feedback. Operating processes are a recurring set of activities towards […]
Customized Insemination Timing
Accurate heat detection is only a part of electronic animal monitoring. With a heat detection accuracy of over 90%, the next level of reproductive management relies on timing insemination to maximize conception rates. Statistically, the eight-hour window between eight and sixteen hours after the peak in activity are the ideal time to inseminate a cow […]
Is it working?
With low milk prices, dairy producers are critically evaluating every single purchase and every management change they intend to make. Evaluating the effects of changes on a dairy farm is challenging because in a conventionally managed farm there is little measurable and immediately available data to gauge cow’s response to such changes. Milk response is […]
Are Conventional Herd Health Strategies Holding You Back?
The main challenge in maintaining herd health is finding the cows that need attention as early as possible without disturbing the entire herd. Ideally, every cow would be checked multiple times a day. But this comprehensive strategy is impractical due to labor scarcity and would create a huge disruption to cows’ daily routine. Disrupting the […]
Effective Electronic Heat Detection – A Layman Technical Explanation
On its surface, electronic heat detection appears to be an easy proposition: all it needs to do is monitor an animal’s movement. Once the animal displays an increase in activity obviously, she’s in heat. All you need to do is breed her! Yet, accurate heat detection is a much more complex in the real world. […]
Silent Heats? There’s No Such Thing!
If a tree falls in the woods and there’s no one around, does it make a sound? For centuries, philosophers have challenged our minds with such questions. If we define sound as a human experience, the answer would be an unambiguous “NO.” If we define sound as a physical phenomenon, the answer would be “YES.” […]
No Open Cows at Dry Off
Abortion in dairy cows is commonly defined as a loss of the fetus between the age of 42 days and approximately 260 days. At an estimated cost of $500 to $900 per abortion (the cost of an abortion increases the later in the lactation it occurs) and an incident rate of approximately 3%-5%, this can […]