Health and Welfare
The more milk a dairy cow produces, the more profitable she will be
Ask any dairy producer and he or she will tell you that they are doing just that. Every day, 365 days a year dairy producers and their teams work hard to take better care of their cows.
But the fact is that no matter how hard they work or how many hours they spend with the cows, sick or uncomfortable cows will only be found AFTER clinical signs will appear.
A couple of examples include:
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The producer will only notice the effects of feed ration changes, intended or unintended, days even weeks after the fact.
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Fans and sprinklers will only be turned on when the producer thinks it’s hot.
Do you notice a trend? Managers have to make important herd decisions based on unreliable and subjective information. They know how to address the needs of an individual cow, but are extremely challenged in their attempt to find those individual cows that need attention from their herd mates.
Ironically, almost any attempt to improve the reliability and timeliness of the decision-making information involves intensive handling of the animals and a major disruption to their daily routine, increasing their stress level and decreasing their comfort level. In turn, this negatively affects milk production and lower milk production means that the cow’s profitability will be lower.
Yes, aggressive veterinary treatments compensate for late identification of sick cows. Yes, TAI protocols compensate for the inability to detect heats in larger herds. And yes, both require a large-scale investment in labor and pharmaceuticals which increase reoccurring expenses. So not only do your cows have high stress levels which we already know lowers their milk production and profitability, you’re also spending more money to help fix their problems. Your decreased revenue combined with higher expenses equal lower profit.
Hopefully you see the problem here. But what if there was a way to cut pharmaceutical costs, intensive handling, and aggressive veterinary treatments to maintain the highest level of comfort for your cows?
Electronic animal monitoring solves the problem of unreliable information influencing a Manager’s decisions. A reliable animal monitoring system allows the dairyman to know the status of each cow at any point in time without having to touch her or disrupt her routine. All that’s needed is the ability to read a simple report.
The impact of the quality information forever transforms the way the herd is managed, significantly impacts its profitability, improves cow comfort, and increases the producer’s peace of mind.
