Neil and John Burke were struggling with heat detection. Milking 500 cows in Skyrne, Co. Meath, in a spring-calving system, they had a full labour unit dedicated to tail painting, heat detection and pulling out cows for breeding at milking time.

The father and son pair entered a partnership when Neil graduated from University College Dublin (UCD) in 2016. At that time, the herd was autumn and spring-calving, but the figures weren’t stacking up for the autumn-calving portion of the herd.

"We made the call to switch to 100% spring calving over 2019 and 2020. It made management far easier, and made more economic sense as well," said Neil. 

Neil and John installed a 60-unit rotary as they expanded the herd from 320 cows in 2018 to 500 today. Neil had experienced milking in a similar system in New Zealand and liked the simplicity.

When designing the shed they included a drafting gate and shortly after that they equipped their cows with Nedap CowControl; smart collars that monitor the health and fertility of the herd.

"We had installed the gate to make picking out cows easier. The Nedap system and our Alfco drafting gate seamlessly integrate with each other," said Neil.

"Each morning at the start of milking, any cow that’s due for AI [artificial insemination] or has a health alert will be standing in the holding pen at the end of milking.

When it came to installing a cow monitoring system, Neil and John were swayed towards Nedap CowControl for a few reasons.

"Outside of the fact that it integrated with our gate, we had heard about the accuracy of the system from a few friends," said Neil.

"Regardless of the integration, I think the system is one of the best out there. We rely on the info we get, and it hasn’t let us down.

A global leader in heat detection and health monitoring, Nedap has been monitoring dairy animals for over 45 years. Using the latest technology, cows are monitored 24/7.

Data from the SmartTag neck collars can be accessed via a phone, laptop or tablet, always giving farmers full visibility of their herd. Nedap partners with leading dairy equipment and genetics suppliers, whose cow monitoring solutions are powered by Nedap.

They fully integrate Nedap’s technology into their systems and services, to ensure you get the highest results and value from it.

During the breeding season, Nedap CowControl comes into its own. Neil can check to see which cows have been cycling after calving, and it allows them to identify problem cows earlier and get them treated before the start of the breeding season.

"Before we put in CowControl, if a cow calved on the February 1, and wasn’t cycling, that wouldn’t have been picked up until the start of breeding. It just makes the whole system more efficient because we’re sorting out problem cows earlier," said Neil.

Prior to installing CowControl, the Burkes were using tail paint and AI for six weeks and cleaning up with stockbulls for six to eight weeks.

"With our herd size, we were using 12 stockbulls each year. They were never exactly trouble free, and we’d a big problem with lameness," Neil recalled.

"On top of that, they were only working for eight weeks of the year, and they still had to be fed and managed for the rest of the year. They were always a safety concern too.

"The saving we’ve made by eliminating the 12 stockbulls we used to buy will go a long way towards paying for CowControl - and that’s before you even look at the labour saving we’ve made, or the improvement in fertility and management."

Like a lot of farms, the Burkes were relying on tail paint prior to installing CowControl. Each morning, there was one person dedicated to tail painting and picking out cows for AI at milking time.

"The system has removed a man from the parlour," said Neil.

"It’s been a huge labour saving, and we’re not as tied to the parlour as we were. One person can milk on their own now, and we’ve improved the accuracy of our heat detection massively.

"We did tail paint this year for the first three weeks to compare, and CowControl was picking up cows that hadn’t had their tail paint touched. That was a real reassurance for us that the system was accurate and was alerting us to silent heats."

Along with moving to 100% AI after installing CowControl, Neil and John have started using sexed semen for the first 10 days of the breeding season. This is followed by three weeks of dairy AI, and then beef semen is used to breed the remainder of the herd.

"We have so much more control and information with CowControl. There’s no way we’d have been confident enough to use sexed semen without the info from the system, with the cow numbers that we have," said Neil.

"We inseminate with sexed semen any time between 14 and 20 hours. We’ve been really happy with the results so far."

One of the Burke’s main goals is to tighten their calving pattern from 85% to 90% in six weeks.

"Now we’re using 100% AI, we can use shorter gestation bulls. As well as the better pre-breeding management, CowControl is going to have a big effect on tightening up our calving pattern," said Neil.

The health monitoring element of CowControl has been an added benefit for the Burkes. 

"We check for health alerts twice a day, and rely on it 100%," said Neil.

"Soon after we installed the system, we had a cow alert with a health issue. I picked her out and looked at her but could see nothing wrong, so I ignored the alert. Two days later, she was in a really bad way, so we called the vet.

"After that, any time a cow flags up with a health alert, we pick her out and call the vet. Our vet finds the system useful too, they can check on each cow’s activity, and see if their activity or rumination has changed recently, which can help then diagnose any problems," the Meath farmer added.

Neil has found that they now rely on CowControl for health alerts.

"We find CowControl is alerting cows at least a day before any physical symptoms show. The reassurance that CowControl gives us from a health point of view is great because we know the info is accurate," he said.

When asked what is the biggest benefit of CowControl, Neil doesn’t take long to respond.

"There’s a pair of eyes on the cows 24 hours a day now, and it’s reduced the stress and the guesswork for us," said Neil.

"The system is easy for staff to use too, and that gives us a huge peace of mind if we’re ever away. We know that the team milking has accurate, reliable info to work from. Our vet and scanner make use of the data too, and it’s brilliant to be able to give them accurate information when they arrive into the yard.

"If anyone is thinking about installing CowControl, I would say it's a fairly clear-cut decision," he concluded.

To learn more about Nedap CowControl and find your nearest distributor, click here.