Scott Hecker, Ray Nebel and Bekah Meller were recently given 2023 industry awards from CowManager.

In a flooded market of animal monitoring systems, it can be easy to get caught up on what is new or flashy. But flashy does not always translate to what you need – efficiency, profitability and, ultimately, a solution that makes your day-to-day herd management tasks easier.

As commercial dairy farms become larger, managers lose the ability to monitor each cow individually. But the need to “see” and “know” each animal personally, as in days gone by, has not vanished.

Onboarding a new activity monitoring system is not simply flipping a switch. In fact, the process starts well before purchase.

The farm I am employed by had tossed around the idea of collars for a couple of years, but never really investigated enough to make the push to purchase a certain system type until the past six months.

Reproductive performance continues to improve across the dairy industry. Herds routinely achieve 21-day pregnancy rates above 20%, up from 14% reported as the national average in the 1990s.

Dairyman Evan Hillan says within the last six months the dairy has seen reduced use of timed A.I., fewer open days and lower culling and mortality rates. The dairy has also increased pregnancy rates and pounds of energy-corrected milk. The results are the effects of his farm implementing activity monitoring and AI from a new entrant into the U.S. market – Connecterra. 

Core body temperature and calving alerts set a new herd health monitoring technology apart from an old system on Willow Breeze Farm.

Don’t rely on just your eyes to catch signs of trouble. Utilize herd monitoring technology to track cows' actions all day, every day to support and enhance herd health.

With a sea of technology options available, there have never been more tools to improve the way your dairy operates. But sometimes deciding which technologies to invest in and implement on your dairy can seem overwhelming.