Cutting back on the use of hormones, improving fresh cow management and decreasing the number of cull cows were the goals that Deluur Dairy wanted to achieve. To do this, Hendrik Eggink, owner of Deluur Dairy, was looking for a cow monitoring system.
His preference for the easy-to-apply ear-tags was greater than for neck collars or leg bands. For that reason, Hendrik decided to try CowManager ear tags by using our ‘seeing is believing’ offer of February 2018. ‘Seeing is believing is an ability to try out the system, without a big financial commitment’, according to the dairyman. It enables farmers to try all three modules Fertility, Health and Nutrition free of charge for 90 days. The only thing the farmer needs to invest in, is the hardware. Another reason Hendrik chose for CowManager over other systems is because of its simplicity and easy installation.
The 90-days trial period was more than enough to convince dairyman Eggink of the power of CowManager. It even exceeded his expectations; 'I am convinced that the CowManager tool is a great help in managing our dairies'. Deluur Dairy has more than 3,100 dairy cows spread over multiple locations. Monitoring all those cows for heat and health is labor intensive and slows down the decision-making process. CowManager makes this process easier, because it allows farmers to retrieve a list with just the cows that have a heat or health alert and therefore need extra attention. It is up to the dairyman to follow up on the cows in this list.
'Our management of fresh cows has been greatly simplified’, claims Eggink. With the alerts list from CowManager he can accurately detect the cows in heat for insemination and all the cows that have a difficult start-up. This saves time and enables him to make adequate decisions. Before using CowManager the cows with a difficult start-up went to the next group unnoticed. This caused major health and production problems, resulting in unnecessary large numbers of cull cows. Now, these cows stay in the fresh cow group until they are fully recovered, resulting in a better performing and healthier cow.
'After having used CowManager for 3 months, we terminated our Ovsync program' Before CowManager, Deluur Dairy was a 100% Ovsync herd. Thanks to the heat alerts given by the CowManager System, that is no longer necessary. Currently, Ovsync is used when a cow hasn’t been bred after 100 days in milk and is checked by a vet.
Also the percentage of pregnant cows is increasing; "Our percentage of cows pregnant during preg check (palpation nr.) went from 53% on average to 67% and continues to improve. Recently we hit 80% on Dairy #1. The percent of cows pregnant in the herd went from 50% before CowManager to near 60% now (we installed it 6 months ago!). We are pushing out our DIM at first breeding to improve our peak milk production"
“We are very impressed with CowManager. We continue to improve herd health and fertility with the help of the system. I recommend CowManager to everyone, it really gives you a ‘peace of mind’ that your animals are being looked after.”