Benefits of parlour software and OOPF's??

[Tullyvernon]

Been thinking of adding Manual ID to my parlour and feeding-to-yield through Out Of Parlour Feeders, wile batch feeding in parlour. I don't use a diet feeder and cows eat bales at the feed fence.

At the minute I am manually recording once a month (if even) and trying to feed accordingly in the parlour, but I think the feed curves for fresh cows and cows in calve with the feed to yield could be a benefit.

I suppose the worse the feed efficiency the more benefit the system would be, but curios to what others have found with their set-ups? Or any better way to go about it?

 

[Turboman]

Why manual id ? We moved to auto id and much better and faster. Yes you see benefits in feeding cows to target more accurately but you also get more accurate info on cow lactations as well. We don't have oopf just feed to yield in parlour but either or , or both!

 

[Tullyvernon]

Why manual id ? We moved to auto id and much better and faster. Yes you see benefits in feeding cows to target more accurately but you also get more accurate info on cow lactations as well. We don't have oopf just feed to yield in parlour but either or , or both!

Cost is the only reason of thinking of manul ID, the auto is over twice as much!

It's a Fullwood parlour I have BTW, I know it's quite a lot more expensive to add the software than a local ATL parlor was

 

[Turboman]

It depends on a number of factors. Cow numbers being one of them-how many cows sre you putting through? A small setup its not yoo much of a problem manual id cows and with a small herd you will probably know a lot of cows numbers from memory.

Problem gets worse with larger herds its too time consuming and harder to remember individual cows numbers. Then there's relief milkers. Will they enter the correct numbers all the time? Problem is if they don't you end up with yields that dont correspond and subsequently they wont get fed right. On a high yielding cow in peak lactation this can be disastrous leading to health problems. As someone once told me theres only one thing worse than not having figures and that is having figures which are misleading!

 

[Will Blackburn]

I get along very well with manual ID linked to oopfs feeding to yield. We start them off at 4kg then move them to feed to yield as soon as they have an average milk yield (8 days). Very simple to change the herds M+ feed graph according to conditions/silage/grass. Fullwood crystal system too.

 

[Blue.]

I'm on manual I'd with a parlour link,I've never let the computer alter yield.

I just do it manually every week/10 days.

 

[Tullyvernon]

I'm on manual I'd with a parlour link,I've never let the computer alter yield.

I just do it manually every week/10 days.

Why do you not use the computer to alter the feed?

 

[Blue.]

Why do you not use the computer to alter the feed?

I suppose I'm a bit old fashioned and know every cow so I go down the list thinking,she's a bit thin etc....

 

[Tullyvernon]

I suppose I'm a bit old fashioned and know every cow so I go down the list thinking,she's a bit thin etc....

I suppose as long as you take a look regularly its basically the same thing.
I have the portions stored in the feed box, so just type the FB's in as the cows walk past, works well in quiet times of the year, taking the time to manually record the yields and adjust the portions with work busy and a lot calving its not being done regular enough.

 

[Blue.]

I suppose as long as you take a look regularly its basically the same thing.
I have the portions stored in the feed box, so just type the FB's in as the cows walk past, works well in quiet times of the year, taking the time to manually record the yields and adjust the portions with work busy and a lot calving its not being done regular enough.

Depends on length of your parlour but feeding from the meter/cow point makes a massive difference to speed,I used to milk in a 24/24 where you put feed in at the rear and to make it worse if you missed a cow you had to enter the full side again.

I posted in a thread last week how I bought my computer link from a wanted add in the farmers guardian.

 

[Big_D]

http://www.agriserve.com/digital-feeder-control

You will most likely think this old fashioned but we have similar controllers to these. Similar to @eulb I like to feed cows as individuals taking into account condition. I tail tape cows with different colours according to yield at monthly recording. I dare say you could fit blue, black, green (4lb,5lb,6lb) to a new calved one and cut the top one off the same day each week to do your own feed curve?!

 

[Blue.]

http://www.agriserve.com/digital-feeder-control

You will most likely think this old fashioned but we have similar controllers to these. Similar to @eulb I like to feed cows as individuals taking into account condition. I tail tape cows with different colours according to yield at monthly recording. I dare say you could fit blue, black, green (4lb,5lb,6lb) to a new calved one and cut the top one off the same day each week to do your own feed curve?!

Chap we did 3rd milking for used tapes,blue was 2 and white was 5 a cow with white blue and red got 7 and was milked in the quarter milker. if you missed seeing a tape things could go very wrong.

 

[Big_D]

Chap we did 3rd milking for used tapes,blue was 2 and white was 5 a cow with white blue and red got 7 and was milked in the quarter milker. if you missed seeing a tape things could go very wrong.

double red tapes for dump cows here to be safe!

 

[Blue.]

double red tapes for dump cows here to be safe!

Ankle band
Tail tape
And blocked on milk meter here.

 

[cattow]

I get along very well with manual ID linked to oopfs feeding to yield. We start them off at 4kg then move them to feed to yield as soon as they have an average milk yield (8 days). Very simple to change the herds M+ feed graph according to conditions/silage/grass. Fullwood crystal system too.

I'm considering adding my OPPF to my Cyrstal sorting gate went to look at one yesterday with dealer, how do you tell if one feeder is blocked from the computer ? or do you just check manually ? thanks

 

[Will Blackburn]

I'm considering adding my OPPF to my Cyrstal sorting gate went to look at one yesterday with dealer, how do you tell if one feeder is blocked from the computer ? or do you just check manually ? thanks

You can do several things. Do a calibration and check the pans, look at stallview, set up a report to show how much each feeder has fed the day before, look for a rusty pan, and the other way is to see if the cows are avoiding a feeder.

 

[cattow]

, set up a report to show how much each feeder has fed the day before,

thank-you that's what I was hoping