Dairy farming at the foot of Mount Taranaki can be an unforgiving task with unpredictable weather flowing down the mountain side.
Ohangai farmer and Farm Fit founder Kane Brisco has found making the farm as efficient as possible and adopting new technology essential in this environment. A year ago he fitted his 310-strong herd with SenseHub® Dairy Monitoring Collars (previously known as Allflex Collars) and has found it to be a game-changer.
"The mountain can be a harsh environment to farm in and the collars and behaviour monitoring has allowed us to be proactive and jump on issues earlier. It has been a huge help – particularly with mating season as it can pick up when a cow is on heat without manually eye balling each cow," Kane says.
The SenseHub Dairy monitoring software is part of a wider ecosystem - and behaviour monitoring for heat and health is just the beginning. The herd is fitted with SenseHub® Collars and data is uploaded to the SenseHub controller located on the cow shed roof every time the cows comes within 700-900 metres’ sight of the shed. Farmers are able to access the data via computer in shed or via an the SenseHub Dairy app on their phone.
"Good information leads to good decisions, and the data has provided us with great information."
"We’re able to monitor our cows’ breathing, rumination, and movement patterns during the day and pre-empt any issues cropping up. If we notice the cows’ breathing is heavy then we’re able to quickly move in and change things. It’s definitely made an impact on our bottom-line as well with animal health spending down over the past year," Kane says.
The data is also able to be used by third-parties such as vets and nutritionists.
MSD Animal Health New Zealand's Livestock Veterinary Technical Advisor for Monitoring and Automation Systems, Matt Buckley says New Zealand is at the forefront of adopting technology in pastoral dairying systems. He works with farmers, vets, and consultants and provides training on how to get the most out of the data collected on farm.
"Knowing how to use the data and get the benefit from it is essential. SenseHub® Dairy Monitoring offers farmers the ability to check for all sorts of animal issues on farm including heat," he says.
"As the cow moves around the collar picks up their behaviours that may indicate the cow is in trouble. The collar records the number of minutes a day and the time of day that the cow was most affected, which the farmer can then use to implement mitigation factors such as sprinklers, milking at different times of the day and or moving cows to shaded paddocks. Heat stress tends to lead to lower milk production, decreased reproductive performance, and profitability so it’s vital farmers move quickly.
"The collars also pick up behaviour changes in animal which could be associated with symptoms of facial eczema, which can be an issue, particularly for North Island farms during summer period where they experience warmer, moist weather. SenseHub® Dairy Monitoring will pick up if a cow’s behaviour has changed or has reduced production, which could be an indication of facial eczema or another health issue. Having the data available and able to share with vets means the farmer can get a jump on the issue before it affects too many of the herd and has significant impact on production. It’s an impressive farm management tool."
Visit www.sensehub.co.nz for more information about SenseHub® Dairy Monitoring.
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