Cows are domestic animals who require a consistent ration of high-quality forage on a daily basis. Cow performance can be impacted by changes in ration consistency. However, it’s difficult to predict how cows will respond to refill shifts, whether deliberate or unintentional, before obvious signs appear, such as a decrease in your bulk tank or changes in cow health. Early cow reactions can be detected using herd monitoring technology, allowing adjustments to be made before larger performance losses occur.
Herd monitoring technology keeps track of individual, group, and herd activity to give farmers an early indication of how animals are reacting to nutrition changes. Farmers can use the data to intervene and make management changes before they lose significant performance.”
Regardless of whether your forage quality is exceptional, poor or somewhere between the two this year, consider these three ways cow monitoring technology can help you improve dairy performance:
1. System of Early Warning
You can’t keep an eye on every cow at all times of the day. Cow reactions to diet changes aren’t always visible to the naked eye, particularly early on. Cow monitoring with eating and rumination monitoring, on the other hand, tracks cows 24 hours a day, seven days a week to provide that much-needed insight. Cow monitoring systems provide an early, precise look into the digestive process of the cow. “Before you see a change in milk production or overall health, you’ll be able to see the effects of a ration.
What is the advantage? Early recognition is preferable.
Ration consistency is influenced by mycotoxin prevalence, field and harvesting conditions, diet preparation, storage management, and feed delivery. For example, if you assume that forage performance has deteriorated and that eating and rumination have begun to shift negatively, you might probably add some higher-quality feed to the ration to help balance out.
You’ll also have the responses you need to go further into your feeding strategy if you’re unsure how suspected mycotoxins affect your herd – and force-feed affected feed only to notice changes in pen and herd eating and rumination trends.
2. The Starting Point for the Investigation
Herd monitoring systems are designed to help detect diseases such as sub-acute ruminal acidosis that might otherwise go unnoticed (SARA). SARA is a costly disease that can cost up to $400 per cow per lactation, costing the dairy industry between $500 million and $1 billion per year.
SARA and other negative health effects can be linked to inconsistent, feed delivery issues, feed intake or forage quality issues. These problems cannot get noticed for weeks or months without cow monitoring, making it difficult for farmers to figure out what’s going on in their herds.
You can more quickly find and identify herbage product defects, correct feed better protection, and uncover other underlying nutrition-related issues with monitoring data in hand. You can also use this information to avoid potential hardships.
3. Encourages Collaboration and Results
Employee and consulting teams can benefit from herd monitoring system as well, as they provide team members with the tools they need to improve job performance and satisfaction. Monitoring technology can assist in the creation of specialized positions on your dairy, giving employees and herd consultants more ownership and resources for problem-solving. Someone on the team, for example, might be able to specialize in interpreting herd monitoring data.
You can also give those who need it the most, such as your nutritionist and veterinarian, restrict access to your herd’s data. Nutritionists and pet owners can gain direct access to eating and rumination tasks while working with you to enhance herd performance with the approval of the farmer.
Conclusion
Livestock Management is the world’s leading provider of farm automation based on individual animal identification. Livestock Management has been assisting dairy farmers for over 40 years by providing the most advanced and innovative cow recognition, tracking, and automation solutions. They provide dependable information to managers and employees, allowing them to make informed strategic decisions regarding nutrition changes that help dairies become more effective, productive, and successful.
Trust and dependability in both partnerships and technology are critical for Livestock Management. Livestock Management has partnered with leading international modern dairy companies, including genetics and milking machinery suppliers, to integrate its new tech into their systems. Livestock Management, a publicly-traded company, employs over 750 people worldwide, spread across ten locations and seven business units.
