Dairy farmers know far more about dairy cows nowadays than generations prior to them. Why? The adoption of technologies on farms is a major explanation.

Most farmers use information from revolutionary technologies to realize the biology behind their dairy herds to make far better choices and turn into far more effective.
 
“With information, we are studying that our cows are altering more than time and are enhancing their production, so farmers can not use information from ten years ago to make choices nowadays for the reason that we had diverse animals back then along with diverse technologies and nutrition,” says Veridiana Daley, Purina Mills senior researcher of adult dairy cows.
 
According to a current Association of Gear Companies report, advancing revolutionary technologies with dairy cow genetics and automated management systems on farms are the most substantial contributing components in decreasing the dairy industry’s carbon footprint, equivalent to taking four million vehicles off the road.
 
The report also discovered that today’s dairy herd produces 4 instances as a great deal as the worldwide typical, with 16 million fewer cows. In addition, farmers’ adoption of technologies has saved sufficient water to provide New York City for two years.
 
“Dairy farming can be complicated. Farmers are below a lot of anxiety, time crunches, and tight profit margins. The objective of applying technologies is to enable farmers make far better choices, obtain the bottlenecks of their operation, and be far more lucrative at the finish of the day,” says Alex Tebbe, a dairy technical specialist with Purina. 

 The creation of a higher-grade dairy cow 

Genomic testing and genetic choice for desirable traits such as milk yield have helped farmers generate far more productive dairy cows. 
 
Most dairies are testing heifer calves to see which ones will genetically make appropriate replacements in their herd. The tests show the genetic possible of milk production, says David Erf, senior veterinarian of dairy technical solutions with Zoetis. 
 
“When we genomic test calves, it can predict their future,” says Erf. “The objective is to obtain which animals will be far more lucrative for dairies.”
 
Genetic testing and choice permit farmers to decrease the quantity of cows that are not expense-powerful. 
 
“Testing enables us to genetically obtain far more of these difficulty-no cost cows that are excellent at production, excellent at reproduction, and in excellent wellness for the reason that a cow that can excel in these 3 regions, she’s going to be a lucrative cow for any farm,” Erf says. 

 
Farmers have far more effective use of time and sources

Now, the most in depth use of technologies on dairy farms is a robotic milking technique, which has revolutionized the milking parlor. 
 
A robotic milking technique can bring far more flexibility to dairy farmers and permit them to concentrate on other tasks, such as crop perform, for the reason that they are no longer tied to a cow, says Suzanne Meck, chief operations officer of AMS Galaxy USA, a provider of precision dairy farming gear.  
 
In a robotic milking technique, a sensor detects the cows present and automatically cleans the cows’ teats prior to and following attaching the milker. In addition, the technique will gather information from a cow’s collar – which is a great deal like a Fitbit device for humans — to track her milking time, pounds of milk made, and rumination. 
 
“Cows can milk themselves about the clock. So perhaps you do not have to be concerned about finding up at the crack of dawn the subsequent morning to start out chores,” says Meck.

In most circumstances, a robotic or automatic milking technique can also imply that cows invest far more time in the barn. According to Meck, that can make it difficult for farmers to get into barns to clean out pens and deliver fresh bedding.  
 
Even so, there are automated cleaning systems such as a flush technique, scrapers, and robotic manure collectors that drag via the barn and take manure to a deposit region, says Meck. 
 
“Automated gear does a excellent job for the reason that it is operating about the clock,” she adds. 
 
Most manure management systems also have water-saving processes and water use tracking attributes to enable farmers make far better choices with water sources. 
 
Farms are also updating to automated bedding systems, which enable decrease bedding waste by placing out compact qualities all through the day. In addition, automated bedding improves cow wellness and comfort, says Meck. 
 
“This kind of automation enables the farmer to bed their cows 3 to 4 instances a day, as opposed to after or twice a week the manual way,” adds Meck. “The cows also like obtaining that fresh bedding often.”

Utilizing information from technologies to far better management decisions 

Now, 1 cow can generate far more than two billion information points more than her lifetime. According to Daley, most dairy farms are gathering physical information points from many software program or monitoring technologies that gather far more than a hundred kinds of details.
 
Farms at a far more basic level with herds that only do Dairy Herd Improvement (DHI) tests after a month are nevertheless gathering 5 to ten information points on their cows month-to-month, adds Tebbe. 
 
Even so, measuring and comparing information to obtain bottlenecks on a farm can be tricky when there is no quick way to integrate the information from the many technologies on a farm. Tebbe says that is exactly where Addie, a Purina dairy record evaluation system, comes in. It collects information from all the management software program technologies getting applied on the farm and creates a report with actionable insights producers can use to improve financial possible.

“Farms that have embraced technologies can have 4 or six diverse software program systems collecting all their information. In the way Purina has constructed Addie, the technique integrates information from these software program systems, in an quick-to realize kind, permitting us start out to realize the entire image of the farm,” says Tebbe. 
 
“Addie is a tool or technologies that is all about the cows,” adds Daley. 

In applying the collected information, farmers appear for techniques to be far more effective with their sources, such as producing far more milk production with significantly less feed or detecting illness earlier in cows prior to it impacts their effectively-getting.
 
“Farmers are curious folks. They generally want to know far more, and they ask terrific concerns, so we can take their concerns and transform their information to get the answers they will need to succeed,” adds Tebbe.