Managing the individual cow is challenging, especially when dairy farms have limited access to labour. This becomes an even bigger challenge with the current impact of COVID-19 and the restrictions in this uncertain time, as keeping social distance and working from home. What if you could manage your herd from your smartphone, 24/7?
Increase Efficiency with Limited Access to Labour
Work smart and stay connected with your herd. CowManager’s ear sensor makes it possible to continuously monitor cows. It has been designed to collect, manage and process the enormous amount of data about a cow’s health status. It is like an extra eye in the barn, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. With this system in place, dairy producers can manage their herd just from their smartphone. It will save time, labour and costs and increase efficiency.
“Cow comfort is our number one goal and efficiency is our number two goal,” says Sander Penterman, owner of Dutch Dairy, 850 cows, USA. “We try to accomplish this with as little manpower as we can.”
CowManager provides accurate and real-time information on four areas: fertility, health, nutrition and location. These measures are based on ear-temperature, activity, rumination, eating and resting time. It is an essential system in professional farm management making farmers’ lives easier by finding cows in heat and catching sick cows earlier. All resulting in increased pregnancy rates, healthier cows, improved production, lower mortality rates and labour and decrease in use of synchronisation programs and medical costs.
Early treatment
Unique to CowManager is that the sensor monitors both behaviour and ear temperature of each individual cow. When a cow is not eating or ruminating an alert will be given to 2 days earlier before the cow is clinically sick. In depth insights in easy to understand graphs offer great support in managing a herd. The system also provides ongoing insights on the recovery of sick cows, enabling farmers to intervene fast.
“CowManager is probably one of the most efficient investments we’ve made in the last few years. It looks after cow welfare better than we can ourselves”, says Barry O’Mahony, 200 cows, Ireland.
Easy to install
CowManager is a wireless system, no cables are needed, which makes it easy to install. With guidance from our online Knowledge Base CowManager can be installed by the dairy farmers themselves. This is very valuable now that the farms cannot be visited by CowManager specialists due to COVID-19 . It is a complete plug-and-play system which is compatible with various farm management systems. The data transmitted by the sensors is collected by (solar) routers which can be installed either inside or outside.
Accuracy, no less. Also, via MultiView
Real-time alerts and easy to read colored graphs are shown in the mobile app or in the web application. Even, third parties like, veterinarians and herdsman, can have visibility and control over the herd’s performance with the MultiView functionality, also when they are not able to visit farms. In this way they can still discuss the fertility, health and nutritional status of the herd and intervene fast where needed.
Dairy farmers can authorise them to access and use the system from any place. The system is always equipped with most accurate information and the latest developments through free over-the-air-programming updates to both hardware and software.
As Dutch Dairy has multiplied from 320 cows in 2002 to its present size of 850 cows, the Pentermans have focused on efficiency, and technology like cow monitoring has been a big factor. The dairy is designed for easy, low-stress animal handling. “Everything is set up for one person, so only one person is needed to give a shot or move a calf, not two”, Sander says.
24/7 monitoring
The system monitors cows 24/7, so also during the night. This is a big advantage as most cows are in heat at night and then show different behaviour. Due to integrations with lots of management systems, also drafting gates can be controlled by CowManager. This again saves time and gives the dairy farmer more time to focus on for example friends and family.
With cow comfort and health as their guiding principles, and efficiency part of their motto, Sander and Amy Penterman look forward to continuing to use technology as a means of reducing reliance on hormones and antibiotics, providing a high level of care for their cows and calves and, ultimately, producing quality milk for their own family and others.