Cow tech driving fertility for Legendairy Holsteins

Farm facts

Dale and Vicki Byers run a high output dairy herd on their family farm outside Ballinamallard, Co Fermanagh.

The 350 acre grassland unit supports 150 autumn calving cows, although the herd is still in an expansion phase.

Cow numbers will rise to 180 head this winter with a consignment of home-bred heifers calving into the herd. Construction is in progress to provide additional accommodation for the increase in cow numbers.

Holstein breeding dominates and the herd is pedigree registered, operating under the Legendairy prefix.

Technology plays a big role on farm and during an open day last week, Dale outlined how he has used the SenseHub livestock monitoring system to improve cow fertility and herd health.

The current dairy herd was established by Dale’s father in 2004 with the purchase of Montbéliarde cows. Prior to that, the farm carried a suckler herd.

Holstein genetics

In 2008, the breeding policy changed with Holstein genetics introduced to drive output and since then, only Holstein sires are used to serve cows.

Annual yields are in the region of 10,600 litres with milk sold to Tirlán. Butterfat is 4.27% with protein at 3.33%, giving 830kg of milk solids per cow. Cows are managed in a year-round indoor system with concentrate averaging 3.8t/cow, giving a milk from forage yield of approximately 2,240 litres.

Milking is carried out through a 16/32 swing-over parlour fitted with feed to yield units.

Fertility

Herd fertility is excellent with an average calving interval of 382 days.

All animals are bred to AI and only sexed Holstein semen is used, which is sourced through World Wide Sires UK.

Sexed semen has facilitated the expansion of the herd in recent years and a transition in cow type from Montbéliarde to pure Holstein bloodlines.

Dale carries out the task of inseminating cows. All services are based on natural heats, which are picked up through the SenseHub system.

Conception to first service is 58% and improving year on year. Cows wear neck collars that transmit to a receiver unit, which then sends notifications to a smart phone when animals are in heat.

Transition

Calving is due to start around 7 September this year with 50% of the herd expected to calve before the end of the month. Cows start drying from mid-July and get a 60 period to transition into the next lactation.

While it is an intensive period in terms of workload, it is also indicative of the high level of management in place, as well as precision feeding to meet the demands of high yielding cows.

Feeding

Silage is made in a multi-cut system with four cuts harvested on five to six week intervals, weather depending.

Around 160 acres is typically harvested in each cut. Again, weather depending, fourth cut is expected to be harvested inside the next week to 10 days.

All forages are analysed and 2024 results range from 11.6 to 11.9 ME (energy), 28% to 38% dry matter and proteins are as high as 18% in second cut.

A concentrate blend is fed to supplement grass silage at a rate of 6kg/day through the diet feeder with cows topped up to yield through the parlour.

Vicki takes on a large part of the calf rearing. All calves are stomach tubed colostrum from their dam at the first opportunity, fitted with a jacket and reared in individual crates up to three weeks old.

At this point, calves move to larger group hutches and fed morning and evening up to eight weeks of age.

Milk is then tapered down as animals approach weaning by 12 weeks old. Calves are fully weaned when they are consuming a pelleted nut and straw on an ad-lib basis.

Dale has been using the SenseHub livestock monitoring system for five years and adopted the technology primarily as a means to improve heat detection.

“We start breeding cows on 1 December. There is a lot happening on farm at that time with calving, milking, calf rearing, feeding etc.

“There is only Vicki and myself on-farm” Dale told farmers attending the event.

“I would have been out walking through cows at 10:30pm watching for heats. It was just getting too time consuming. Also, some cows have very short heats and could be easy to miss.

Sexed semen

Sexed semen is expensive and I wanted to get the most out of it. We felt an automated heat detection system would make sure we were getting cows at the right time to serve.”

All cows are fitted with neck collars, although ear tags are also an option. The technology works by monitoring 10 behaviour traits, which primarily include feeding, rumination and activity levels.

These traits are constantly measured with a real-time update every 20 minutes.

Each update is benchmarked against a 10 day average for every animal to flag up any deviation in behaviour.

Heat activity is presented using a traffic light system via an app on a smart phone, whereby a green light means cows are cycling and ready to serve.

It also shows up cows that are suitable for breeding but not cycling, as well as animals that have not cycled 27 days post insemination – these cows are recommended for pregnancy scanning.

Cows are auto-drafted daily for breeding, as well as various tasks such as scanning, drying off, routine health treatments and feet trimming.

Optimum timing

Being able to see more cows at the start of a heat means they are inseminated at an optimum time, increasing conception rates and reducing the number of days high output cows are empty.

As well as freeing up valuable time, automated heat detection is delivering other advantages for the Byers family compared to manual checks.

Cows are not disturbed with the collar system, allowing animals to exhibit greater levels of natural behaviour.

This has been crucial to pick up cows that tend to show very short or weak heats.

Early intervention

Dale also remarked on how the system has been invaluable at monitoring health across the whole herd, cutting down on various problems. “First thing in the morning, I check for any health problems. It will show up a cow with mastitis or milk fever long before you notice any visual signs.

“We have cut out problems with milk fever, as we can get calcium into cows early. Back in spring, the collars picked up a cow showing signs of going off her feed.

“The vet was contacted straight away. The cow had a twisted stomach, but because it was picked up so early, the problem was quickly sorted.

“We could also monitor the cow’s feeding activity after treatment, giving us reassurance that recovery was going the right way” said Dale.

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