The Advanced Dairy Management program is underway! The students are taking courses and soon they’ll join us in the barn to get some hands-on work with the cows. Working with new students that are passionate and willing to learn about the industry is very exciting for all our staff at the farm.
We’ve been making it a priority not to get behind on some housekeeping activities such as collar maintenance. Since we are milking nearly 560 cows we use the SenseHub SCR Activity collars to help us keep an eye on the health and wellbeing of the cows. Once pregnant heifers join the close-up pack, they receive an SCR collar and a leg-logger. After three or four days the transponders build up a good baseline and begin reading. The most helpful tools of the program for our operations are the monitoring of rumination minutes and heat spikes.
The collars come equipped with the strap, a weight to limit shifting of the collar, and the transponder. Sometimes the collars need to be replaced which can happen for a few reasons:
The transponder is old and battery life inhibits reading.
Collars can fall off. Either the straps get stuck in a headlock or old straps wear down and rip off as a result.
The transponder can be damaged, either in a headlock or from another cow.
The easiest way to replace the collars is by setting the headlocks for a brief amount of time and spreading some hay on top of the TMR to entice the cows to lock in. Once the old collar is taken off we put an ‘X’ on the transponder so it’s not used on another cow, and the code gets sent off to the company.
The second technological tool we use are leg transponders. These transponders go on the front left foot of every milking animal and connect to the BouMatic Smart Dairy system. The transponder allows milk weights to be recorded into the DairyComp 305 system to allow monitoring of the lactation. Although these are less likely to fall off or break than the collars, it’s still important to monitor the milking reports and make sure every cow has a working transponder.
Although the technology is helpful, it doesn’t replace the eye of a good herdsman. Keeping up with the housekeeping activities helps us maintain the health and well-being of the herd, and keep the cows milking at over 100 pounds per day!
— Nicole Roblero