Cattle Care is convinced that a product demonstration is a more impactful way to showcase our product's potential than merely explaining it in words. That is why we offer our clients a complimentary product demo. We continue to present some statistics gathered from analyzing video footage that adopted our system in 2022! Our findings showed that the most prevalent challenge is the usage of one towel for several cows, followed by manual detaches as the second most frequently faced issue.
Animal welfare issues are in third place.
For different types of milking parlors, the indicators of welfare issues vary. The average issues rate in parallel systems is 2 cases per hour for 4 cows per hour, whereas, in rotary systems, this rate is higher and depends on the design of the entrance and exit. Carousels, where the cows' heads are outside, tend to have nearly twice as many errors compared to those where the cows' heads are in the center.
To reduce animal welfare problems and ensure stress-free milking, your employees need to be calm, patient, and quiet. The milking parlor should create a relaxed atmosphere for the cows, rather than causing them distress.However, issues are often encountered in the holding area. On average, there are 6 issues per hour when checking over 7 cows. This can become a significant issue, increasing the time that cows spend standing and consequently decreasing their daily milk yield.
During the Uplevel Dairy podcast, Pauly Paul shared an intriguing example with Peggy Coffeen and her listeners regarding the impact of cows' time spent in a holding area on milk production. The podcast is here
It is also worth noting that high-productivity cows prefer to spend more time lying down, which can negatively impact their feeding time. The more time a cow spends in the holding area, the less time she spends on feeding.
To prevent problems in the holding area and reduce the number of animal welfare issues on your farm, it is essential to consider factors such as adequate space, proper ventilation, non-slip flooring, and other aspects mentioned in the article. These measures will help provide comfort and safety for the cows and enhance their productivity.
By familiarizing yourself with the information in the article you will gain a more detailed understanding of how to improve the conditions of servicing and holding cows on your farm, minimize issues, and enhance their welfare.
Cattle Care detects all deviations in a milking parlor including aggressive interactions with the cows. The algorithms look at the video and find the moment where there is personal contact with cows. The system scores events based on the speed of convergence, the part of the human and cow body, the presence/absence/quality of the object of the interaction (for example towels), and the location of these interactions (head, abdomen, udder, legs, etc). The aggressive interactions get scored from 1 (light) to 5 (severe). On a well-managed farm, there are no severe aggression interactions (scored 4 and 5). The aggression score is one of the basic parameters for our bonus system.
Cattle Care is only one of the possible systems for measuring animal welfare - make it measurable and scored to improve performance rather than tilting at windmills.
Stay tuned for our upcoming posts to find all issues from the top 10 milkers' mistakes in milking parlors!
