Heat time monitors & parlours

[Verney_R]

Hi looking into a upgrading old fullwood 16:16 to new fullwood 24:24 with ad ons such as auto id, auto seg and heat time. Fullwood do pedometers, anybody know what they are like? Are there any other makes you get along well with? We're milking 180 cows autumn block calving. Cheers

 

[Rossymons]

What's your fertility like now? If its good then don't bother with the activity collars. Ours has improved since we stopped using them.

 

[Verney_R]

Our conception rate around 60% it works out to be £4000 more to have the heat time on top of the auto id

 

[Milkcow365]

Our conception rate around 60% it works out to be £4000 more to have the heat time on top of the auto id

I swear by the fullwood peds for low activity as well as high

 

[Verney_R]

I swear by the fullwood peds for low activity as well as high

Yeah they are, record lying down time as well for sick cows apparently

 

[Hotspur]

What's your fertility like now? If its good then don't bother with the activity collars. Ours has improved since we stopped using them

How has it improved?

 

[Rossymons]

We ran Fabdec heattime collars but wasn't happy with them so stopped using them this Autumn and instead started tail chalking and visual observation. It made a massive difference as more cows were spotted bulling and more cows are now pregnant than before. I won't be putting them back on next year.

For a block calving herd such as the OP he has probably been doing a pretty good job without the technology and I would be inclined to keep the money and spend on it something else in the parlour or even a holiday and beer.

 

[Hotspur]

Not sure what was wrong with your collars but there shouldn't be hardly any difference between chalking and activity collars, if the cow is bulling strong enough to get chalk rubbed of heat time should get every one.

We switched from GEA pedometers to Heat time this year although quite a few pedometers still work so I can still look at both systems. I would say the collars are more accurate, the pedometers will show up more activity which isn't a heat.

 

[pappuller]

Had heatime in the parlour which was ok but collar reliability was always an issue, still on scr collars with the robots and also RMS, generally both systems pick a buller but you still get some that will be picked up by one or the other, pregnant rate running at 22% but I think both have a part to play, all systems are an aid to fertility, but you still need to be around those cows to spot the quiet cows

 

[organicguy]

We have Fullwood pedometers, this is our third season. Done virtually no heat detection, just walk through ten minutes at night and we have had over 93% submission. It took us a year to get them working properly, set @ 65% increase in activity, not 15o% as set by Fullwood.
Biggest issue is losses and pedometers failing, or missing a couple of recordings at a vital time.

 

[Rossymons]

And you're preg rate is?

 

[Hotspur]

I'm guessing the VWP isn't 42 days with a submission of 93%

 

[Verney_R]

We have Fullwood pedometers, this is our third season. Done virtually no heat detection, just walk through ten minutes at night and we have had over 93% submission. It took us a year to get them working properly, set @ 65% increase in activity, not 15o% as set by Fullwood.
Biggest issue is losses and pedometers failing, or missing a couple of recordings at a vital time.

I take it your all year round calving? What's your days in milk? How come you had to change the settings and fullwood didn't have it set up right? Would you put them in again if you had the chance or would you look els where?

 

[Verney_R]

And you're preg rate is?

88% In that region

 

[Clay52]

88% In that region

Preg rate is percent of eligible cows that end up pregnant per 21 day period.

 

[multi power]

We ran Fabdec heattime collars but wasn't happy with them so stopped using them this Autumn and instead started tail chalking and visual observation. It made a massive difference as more cows were spotted bulling and more cows are now pregnant than before. I won't be putting them back on next year.

For a block calving herd such as the OP he has probably been doing a pretty good job without the technology and I would be inclined to keep the money and spend on it something else in the parlour or even a holiday and beer.

What was wrong with the collars? Have them here, I love them, but I kind of hate them too, the newer ones are much better

 

[Headless chicken]

Farm I work on has fullwood peds but not really managed to get going with them. Partly because they're on Rms as well. They're is a lot that fail prematurely though which is fine if you notice and have spares. Not so fine if you don't

 

[Rossymons]

What was wrong with the collars? Have them here, I love them, but I kind of hate them too, the newer ones are much better

We were annually replacing about 20 - 25% of the collars which was a drain. Instead of spending money on extra collars we were spending money just to maintain what we had.

I always struggled for accuracy with them too. Making sure the collars were in the right place and right tightness on the cow was always a pain in the ass.

In truth, they aren't more for me. Spending my time doing my own version of RMS has worked really well and so I will be carrying on with that instead of doing a job I struggle to get enthusiastic about putting collars on cows.

 

[Rossymons]

88% In that region

Sorry I said preg rate which wasn't what I meant but you gave me the answer I was looking.

Do you see any advantage over having these collars to what you're doing now? High submission followed by high pregnancy numbers would tell me you're doing a-ok so far.

 

[pappuller]

88% In that region

Are you sure ?