Two years ago, when Jobo Farms started looking at different programs and ideas to make their parlor run more smoothly, they instead found a herd health monitoring system that fascinated them with what it could do for their cows.

While the cow-side benefits of monitoring technology are significant, don’t overlook the human benefits for your employees. These advantages go beyond simple labor savings.

On March 25, the USDA released that unpasteurized, clinical samples of milk from sick cattle collected from two dairy farms in Kansas and one in Texas, as well as an oropharyngeal swab from another dairy in Texas, have tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI).

Dairy farm management gets more complex every day. If you do not already have a dedicated tech specialist on your farm, now is the time to decide who should take charge of managing these systems for your farm and integrating data to help your team make informed decisions.

A productive cow isn’t always a profitable cow. A profitable cow performs in milk volume and quality, breeds back quickly and experiences few health events.

Recently, Tom Wegner was named the recipient of the 2023 Boehringer Ingelheim Dairy First Award. “It was pretty cool for Rebecca Gotham, my BI rep, to recognize me, our farm and my employees for all the hard work we do,” Wegner says.

Cattle may have been domesticated for centuries now, but they remain prey animals and work to keep their secrets. Those masking skills were beneficial thousands of years ago, but they can create herd management challenges today.