Best management aid

[supercow]

Hi, been a while folks I bet you’ve all missed me. We are putting a few more cows on, and since being out of the parlour I find it hard at times to keep fully on top of the cows health, got an ecoli at the weekend and when I’m getting different people to milk they will never pick it up first milking. What management tags are best, i enquirer about the world wide sires tags and they claim to pick up ecoli by recording her temperature etc. Looking for an aid to help with heat detection also. Any help welcome

 

[Rossymons]

You've got ear tags, pedometers, boluses or collars - almost too much choice.

I've only seen one herd on ear tags and the system was not very good at all. It wasn't Cow Manager though which i've had a play with. It looks very comprehensive and i've been told it comes with a price tag to match it. I'm sceptical about how accurate an ear tag can be for heat detection given they can fall out easily and a lot of cows I work with are that tame you can waggle their ears for them.

My experience of pedometers isn't great and that they have been wildly inaccurate.

Collars and boluses have been good and reliable. You don't need a collar on every animal as they can be taken off pregnant animals and moved onto dry cows so you have the health benefits of the rumination recording away before and after calving. Boluses you need one for every animal but can offer temperature as well plus some people don't want collars hanging off their cows which is fine.

Having seen a lot of these systems what I would say is:

Understanding the data presented is key to maximising your value for money. Some systems throw out the information a lot better than others. If you cant understand what you're looking at then you will just ignore it and what a waste of money that is!

Backup support is crucial. Most systems are running off the cloud and sometimes the internet goes. Having these downtime reduced to a minimum. A helpful person on the end of the phone to assist is key too.

Have a play with as many different systems as possible to find what suits you.

 

[Cowmansam]

Cow manager is good does pick out sick cows I reckon I beat it by a milking most times though

 

[supercow]

You've got ear tags, pedometers, boluses or collars - almost too much choice.

I've only seen one herd on ear tags and the system was not very good at all. It wasn't Cow Manager though which i've had a play with. It looks very comprehensive and i've been told it comes with a price tag to match it. I'm sceptical about how accurate an ear tag can be for heat detection given they can fall out easily and a lot of cows I work with are that tame you can waggle their ears for them.

My experience of pedometers isn't great and that they have been wildly inaccurate.

Collars and boluses have been good and reliable. You don't need a collar on every animal as they can be taken off pregnant animals and moved onto dry cows so you have the health benefits of the rumination recording away before and after calving. Boluses you need one for every animal but can offer temperature as well plus some people don't want collars hanging off their cows which is fine.

Having seen a lot of these systems what I would say is:

Understanding the data presented is key to maximising your value for money. Some systems throw out the information a lot better than others. If you cant understand what you're looking at then you will just ignore it and what a waste of money that is!

Backup support is crucial. Most systems are running off the cloud and sometimes the internet goes. Having these downtime reduced to a minimum. A helpful person on the end of the phone to assist is key too.

Have a play with as many different systems as possible to find what suits you.

Cheers Ross, who supplies cow manager? I agree that the ear tags might not be accurate. Iv a fella coming up tomorrow to discuss options. Bonus sounds the most reliable

 

[___\0/___]

Cheers Ross, who supplies cow manager? I agree that the ear tags might not be accurate. Iv a fella coming up tomorrow to discuss options. Bonus sounds the most reliable

We liked the bolus system but the scottish sales team were in a right mess last year. Its biggest downfall was having to be close to the base station to pick up a reading, so might need multiple reading points if using for dry cows etc

 

[Jdunn55]

I don't like pedometers personally, found them highly inaccurate when at my last job, they switched to collars with their robots and were a million times better. I also don't like the idea of ear tags for the same reasons above and don't know anything about bolus's

 

[Rossymons]

Cheers Ross, who supplies cow manager? I agree that the ear tags might not be accurate. Iv a fella coming up tomorrow to discuss options. Bonus sounds the most reliable

I believe that Cow Manager is tied up with WWS but I could be mistaken.

Boluses can break and don't be fooled otherwise. At least a collar or eartag can be taken off and replaced whilst its being repaired. A bolus is stuck in there. Because they can't be taken away boluses tend to be sold on subscription whereas collars/tags will be sold per unit.

Anyone that comes out make sure you get a demo of the app on your phone as you'll be using that more than any desktop version believe me. The amount of times ive walked past a cow and pulled out my phone to check her data is very high - you won't walk past her then immediately walk off to the office to check then come back and find her again. You want to know what's going there and then. Go for a walk around the yard with it just to check how reliable it is whilst you're doing your thing outside.

 

[kp_n_plghng]

I would say you need good phone functionality for a robot system or if cows are in AYR and you ai in the daytime. But you could still view it in the cloud anyway you don't actually need an app but yes check it works well on phone. However if you're going to be drafting the cow when she comes out the parlour you would just check the desktop pc before you start milking. I find Uniform on the phone is very handy but not so much the heat detection, just the way it works here anyway.

 

[kp_n_plghng]

I should add phone is also useful for bulling heifers as most systems will email or text you when they come on! Bloody brilliant