Smoke over Central Valley in California, picture taken November 15th 2018 near Turlock, CA approximately 150 miles from the fire. The Camp Fire is the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history. The fire started on November 8th, 2018. As of November 19th, the fire has claimed 77 civilian fatalities and destroyed over 8,500 […]
Sick Cows That Don’t Get Treatment
The first weeks of working with an electronic animal monitoring system is a period of discovery for farm employees. They continue to use the pre-monitoring system protocols alongside the animal behavior data generated by the monitoring system. This is typically an opportunity not only to find sick cows before clinical symptoms appear, but to also […]
Finding Herd-Wide Issues Early
The dairy business is a business where problems don’t disappear, they only get bigger. Most, if not all, of health and reproduction issues are a symptom of an issue that occurred weeks or even months before. Therefore, identifying potential problems when they are still small is very impactful on the bottom line. Early identification of […]
Cow Stress, Health, and Longevity
For decades the scientific community has tried to answer the question “What plays a bigger role in determining the propensity for improved health and longevity, is it genetics or is it the environment?” Research on human paternal (identical) twins clearly shows that the environment has a more significant role in determining health and longevity. It […]
What is TAI covering up?
Poor or inadequate heat detection is a major cause of reproductive inefficiency in dairy herds. Timed artificial insemination (TAI) results in improved reproductive performance, because all animals are inseminated in a timely manner, regardless of the farm’s heat detection efficiency. But the perceived freedom from the need to heat detect may have significant practical drawbacks. […]
The Importance of Cows’ Access to Feed
Feeding practices have a huge impact on herd health and performance, so the importance of delivering a consistent feeding program is paramount to herd profitability. Everything involved in a proper feeding program is of equal importance – what (from a nutrition point of view) is delivered, how feed is delivered and when feed is delivered. […]
Problem Solving in the Dry Pen
The dry period is the most important stage of the lactation. It prepares the cow and her udder for the upcoming lactation as well as delivering a healthy calf. These are two important components of generating revenue for the dairy. Yet, typically dry cows get less attention than they deserve. In most farms, dry cows […]
Assessing Effectiveness of Veterinary Treatments
There are two aspects to the management of a dairy’s health program. The first is the management’s ability to identify sick cows in a timely manner. The second is administering the proper treatment effectively. Much has been written about electronic animal monitor’s ability to “find” sick cows early without disturbing the daily routine of healthy […]
Negative Energy Balance and Activity
Proper cow care is the basis for good milk production and reproduction. Yet, despite all the effort towards a high level of cow care, the quality of care cows actually get tends to be lesser than the quality of care herd management believes the cows are getting. Let’s unpack this. As the herd responds to […]
Implementing an Animal Monitoring System – Part 3 of 3
Once these first two stages have been successfully implemented we would expect that improved cow welfare, improved nutritional control, and improved health of the herd have a positive impact on both milk production and reproductive performance. When cows are provided with the best possible conditions to perform in, management focus shifts to maximizing the economic […]