Livestock management can be challenging, requiring good observational skills and adequate time to monitor the different groups that need attention.

In dairy and suckler herds, the final few cows left to calve must hit the ground running to get back in-calf and stay profitable within the herd.

These cows are under pressure to return to heat as soon as possible post-calving, meaning she must have a smooth nutritional transition combined with the lowest possible risk of metabolic diseases that can occur to late calvers.

This is where activity monitoring can offer many benefits.

Livestock management

Activity monitoring, with a focus on health monitoring and timely reports, provides the best results.

Rumination monitoring is widely accepted as the best guide to determine how well the cow is coping with this management change.

Rumination rates will fall to a minimum pre-calving but must rise to the natural rate of rumination, ideally within 72 hours post-birth, to maximise her production and fertility.

An important decision is choosing the partner and technology that can deliver this, like the Tru-Test Active Tag from Datamars Livestock.

The biggest drivers of farm profitability are feed conversion efficiency, weight for age, fertility, total milk solids (kg), or total beef (kg) sales.

In maiden heifers, weight for age is the best predictor of fertility performance. Heifers should be at least 60% of mature herd body weight to get the best results.

The best overall herd fertility results are achieved by minimising body condition loss in the first 30 days post-calving to less than 0.05 BCS (25kg) on a scale of 1-5.

This can be achieved by matching dry matter (DM) intake to predicted animal production. Many farmers use body condition scoring (BCS) to monitor weight-loss in their herds. However, in larger herds, BCS in early lactation is a labour-intensive and somewhat subjective method of monitoring weight gain or loss in the herd.

Teagasc recommends that cows should calve at an average BCS of 3.25 (range 3.25-3.5) with a body score average of 2.9 at service (range 2.75-3.25). It is widely accepted that a BCS equates to 50kg of body live weight.

Ideally, farmers should manage this weight loss to 25kg in the first 30 days of lactation. Teagasc research shows that a weight loss over 0.05 BCS or 25kg shows a reduced conception rate of 8% in the six-week in-calf rate.

After this, she must start to gain weight to ensure good health, fertility, and milk solids production for her lactation.

Weighing

This is where active weighing using practical, autonomous weighing solutions, like the Tru-Test Walk Over Weigh system, linked to activity monitoring can flag potential problem cows or underperforming young stock that need attention.

The solutions to minimise body condition loss will vary from farm to farm. For some, it may be to put the cows in a group for special attention. The options are to increase energy diet, preference grazing allocations, once-a-day milking, or a combination of two or more of these options.

Active monitoring linked to auto drafting reduces the labour required to implement these practices. It also offers the advantage of managing the herd/herds remotely, reducing stress on the animals and workload on farm labour at critical times of the year.

As technology evolves, as does the connected ecosystem on farm, and it is becoming more apparent that selecting a business partner is not just about an isolated product of solution, but rather about the entire ecosystem (present and future) that will ultimately drive the continuation of business success and increasing efficiency.

Datamars Livestock is at the forefront of driving a connected ecosystem for data capture, information generation and insights delivery.

Its solutions are designed to work seamlessly together – as they are all in-house designed, developed and delivered. From electronic identification (ZTag EID solutions), to activity monitoring (Tru-Test Active Tag) and on to autonomous weighing (Tru-Test Walk Over Weigh) Datamars Livestock provides these end-to-end solutions.

For more information, visit the Datamars website by clicking here.