Cow monitoring technologies bring real-time data to the dairy and are used to inspect every aspect of reproductive management, herd health and ration changes.
Three dairymen who have installed rumination and activity monitoring systems share how their data plays a part in reproduction protocols, herd health and feed management.
Roundtable participants:
Jason Scruton
Scruton’s Dairy Inc.
Farmington, New Hampshire
225 cows
Technology capabilities: activity and rumination monitors, milk measurement
Installation: September 2014
Brent Moyer
Paramount Dairy
Caro, Michigan
1,650 cows
Technology capabilities: activity and rumination monitors, milk measurement
Installation: April 2012
Stewart Frost
Paul Frost Farms LLC
Waterford, Wisconsin
600 cows
Technology capabilities: activity and rumination monitors
Installation: February 2015
Q. Describe the role activity and rumination monitor data plays in these areas of management: reproduction protocols, herd health, feed management.
A. SCRUTON: We are using the system’s data to detect heat and for inseminating cows. It gives us a breeding window for insemination times, and we are using this information to make decisions about what time of day to breed cows. Because of it, we have increased our conception rate.
The computer system will also bring up lists of cows that have dropped in rumination activity, and it will flag them as sick cows. We can then go out and check those cows and move them into our fresh and sick group so we can do a little bit closer examination to determine what their problem is. SCR is linked to our milking parlor, so I am getting daily milk weights and conductivity on charts to help find individual cow mastitis.
The system allows me to send emails to my nutritionist about any of the data lists from the system reports. We are monitoring milk production and rumination changes daily.
The rumination data does not give us precise data to make ration changes, but if we make changes to the diet and see a rumination increase or decrease, we can determine if we have made a positive or negative change. If we see a dramatic drop in rumination, we can also investigate our forages and find out if we are seeing extra spoilage.
A. MOYER: The system’s data has created tons of efficiencies with employees. We can take fairly unskilled cow people and have the computer find the sick animals for them so all they have to do is figure out why the sick cow is on the health index list.
We also receive a breeding list. Some of our guys don’t even know what a cow in heat really is, but with the system’s data, our employees don’t have to worry about any visual heat detection. If the system says that a cow is sick or in heat, then the cow is sick or in heat. There is no question about it.
We also monitor the daily and monthly averages of rumination activity by group. The rumination data gives us information about whether one group is lower than another group of the same age and stage of lactation.
With it, we can begin to look for reasons why one group’s rumination might be lower. If we rectify the situation, then the cows jump back up within a week and are right there with their herdmates of the same lactation, stage and age.
A. FROST: We use both the activity monitoring and the rumination monitoring because the system combines the two to come up with what is called a heat index. The heat index considers which cows are eligible to be bred and also gives a time window when the cows should be bred.
With the system, we are able to individually monitor all of our cows, and we vary our voluntary waiting period. Right now, a little more than 85 percent of our breedings across the entire farm are initiated by the system, and the other 15 percent of the breedings are done in response to a prostaglandin shot or an Ovsynch protocol.
On a day-to-day basis, we use the health index list to determine everything we do as far as looking for sick cows. We look at the data across the herd and by group to identify cows with any type of sickness, then we go out to look at the individual cows.
For the size of our herd, it is pretty regular to have two to six cows on our list to check out in a day. We don’t even monitor individual milk weights in the parlor anymore. We have it and look at it for confirmation of what we are doing when making ration changes and to make sure flagged cows on the list are still up in milk production.
We look at the average rumination minutes for the day and for the last 30 days for each individual pen to keep track of how our feed changes affect the total rumination minutes. We also look at the rumination data to confirm the ration changes we make and if they were good changes or bad changes.
Q. In what ways has this system changed the way you manage heat detection and your use of Ovsynch programs, identifying and treating sick cows, and ration changes?
A. SCRUTON: Before the monitors, we were using a 100 percent Presynch program. We were doing visual observation for both the heifers and cows, and we were trying to visually observe the cows 21 days post-service. Now we have gone to no visual observation.
We still watch the cows, but there are no designated times where we have any one of my workers watching animals for heat. We are pretty confident the system is finding more heats than we will ever find through visual observation and that the findings are more accurate.
In terms of herd health, before the system we were walking groups looking for cows that might be sick, and a lot of labor was spent going out and checking over the cows. Now, with the system, we are pretty confident the system is finding the cows having problems out in the herd.
We are still out there giving shots and moving cows, but we are not taking an extra trip out there specifically looking for sick cows because the system is finding those cows for us.
We are wasting less time and less treatment on individual cows. In the past, if we started a treatment and it wasn’t working, it was difficult to see improvements from a physical standpoint. With the rumination monitor, we are now able to see if the cow’s rumination activity has increased and know whether or not to change the treatment.
With this information, we are not wasting time and money on a treatment protocol that is not working for the cow.
A. MOYER: The system cuts time down considerably and is incredibly accurate. With the rumination data, we are not walking through pens looking for sick cows or cows in heat multiple times a day. Instead, the system gives us a list of sick cows or cows in heat on the computer. We can then go find the cows that we need to treat or breed right away. These activities now take an hour versus half the day.
The system has also helped us to make culling decisions sooner. In the past, we would treat a cow and didn’t know if she was eating better or not. We might have thought she was, but now we actually can see she is improving with the rumination data. If they seem to be making progress, we keep the treatment and keep working on the cow. If they aren’t making any progress on the feeding side, we just stop, cut our losses and get rid of the cow.
A. FROST: Before, we were tail-chalking and failing at getting cows bred. We were not having a lot of success with our reproduction program, which is why we put the first activity monitoring system in. Over four years of using the system, we phased out having herd sires in the barns, and then 16 months ago we put the rumination and activity monitors in, and that really upped our percentage of detected heats.
We were running around 65 to 70 percent heats detected with the old system, and now we are running at 75 to 80 percent of heats detected.
One of the things we have used is the report in the system called route consistency. The lower it is, the more consistent you are. So, in fact, the index is showing you variability. We used to have a high route consistency index in our dry cows and our pre-fresh groups because we used to feed them whenever it was convenient.
Because of the system data, we changed the way and time we fed cows. Now we have moved to feeding them like the milk cows on a very set schedule and strict diet. As a result, we have seen our consistency index really drop.
Q. What do you think is the most valuable data you get from your system? Why?
A. SCRUTON: It is really hard to give a specific on what is the most important data. It is such an integrated software system that combines all the data together and gives you graphical information. Each piece to the puzzle doesn’t fit if you don’t have all the pieces. So the data is really working together as a whole to give me a whole picture of each cow and the farm together.
I also am a data hog. I love to have information about my groups of cows, and this system is giving us a ton of information. It is difficult to say which is the most valuable monetarily with the system, which might be the best way to evaluate it.
Due to the heat detection data, our pregnancy rate has increased dramatically, and our conception rate has increased as well. This is going to translate into more milk and more pregnant cows. So this data has very large economic value to the system.
A. MOYER: The most valuable data I get from the system is the rumination data. It gives me an idea of how healthy the whole herd is and on an individual-cow basis. This, in a sense, lets me have the ability to know every cow and how she is doing without ever seeing that cow.
A. FROST: I think the most valuable thing with the system is the system itself. There are so many things the system does on our farm, and by having the system we put our trust in it. If the system says it, we believe it.
We go out and look at cows and we confirm it but, ultimately, we trust the data and the information the system is telling us. So the more a person uses the system, the more successful they will be at using it.
Q. What are some of the ‘go-to’ functions of your system that you use on a daily basis?
A. SCRUTON: In the morning, there are two lists we really look at. First is the health index list, which gives us a list of cows that are possibly sick or have something wrong with them. We take a look at this list multiple times in a day, but first thing in the morning we ask ourselves: Are there any new cows on the list we should check? How has the health index changed on the cows we treated the day before?
The heat detection list is the other list we look at that gives us the cows to be bred that day. The report gives us a window of when the best breeding time is for that cow. With this information, we time our day around when those cows are going to need to be bred.
The third list we look at once a day is the questionable mastitis. This information allows us to go pull the cows out of the group if they need to be taken care of right away.
A. MOYER: We use the rumination data and activity data daily and use the milk production data five out of the seven days a week. It all works together, and we use all three components to find sick cows and cows in heat.
If a sick cow’s rumination is low, then obviously her milk and activity are low because she is not up moving around eating. The same goes for high-activity cows in heat. Their rumination will fluctuate because they are more active during heat looking for another cow and won’t spend a lot of time eating. So all of the data goes hand-in-hand.
A. FROST: Every morning, I get three emails from the system: the 30-day rumination report, the fresh cow report and the list of cows in heat. I look at those three reports every morning before I drive to the dairy so I know what I am getting into. Our herdsman gets the health index report in an email to his phone three times a day.
Q. What has been the biggest struggle of using rumination monitors on your dairy?
A. SCRUTON: When we first started using the system, the data was a little bit overwhelming because there was so much to look at. However, it didn’t take long to become comfortable with the data because of the lists and canned reports that [the company] had set up in their data pool program.
It has even been a fairly easy transition with the system for my herdsman, who is a lot less technologically savvy than me.
A. MOYER: It is not a maintenance-free system and can take quite a bit of care to keep it up and running correctly. The neck collars get twisted or turned around, which will affect the data you collect from that individual collar. I have to devote about one day a week to checking them, and I would say that is the biggest downfall to the whole system.
A. FROST: There is nothing about the system we struggle with – except occasionally we have collars go bad. However, this isn’t a big deal because the collars have a warranty. So if a collar stops working, we put it in an envelope and send it off, and they send the collar back for free. 
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Audrey Schmitz
- 2016 Progressive Dairyman
- Editorial Intern
