For the all-female team at Tedion Farm in Pembrokeshire, linking a heat detection system to a three-way sorting gate has enabled them to reduce milking time and labour units and improve the accuracy with which the herd is handled and managed.
Laura Elliott farms in partnership with her mother, Kathy, and sister, Rachel, at Tedion Farm near Lawrenny where, along with full-time herdswoman, Lisa Bassett, they milk 270 spring calving cows producing 6,300 litres and 500kg of milk solids from one tonne of concentrates.
Since Laura took over the day-to-day management of the herd in 2016, cow numbers have increased from 230, with a combination of home-bred sweeper bulls and AI being used to breed beef calves and replacement heifers for the closed herd.
The farm's 18/36 swingover parlour was refurbished in 2005 but, because it is housed within the confines of a traditional stone building, space is somewhat restricted which makes manual drafting and handling of cows as they exit the parlour a time-consuming and labour-intensive process.
"For a lot of the year that meant we'd need two people in the parlour, with one person constantly opening and closing gates to segregate animals for inspection, treatment or AI," Laura explains. "We knew we needed to find a way to reduce milking times, cut down on labour units and make life easier for ourselves, so an automatic drafting gate was the obvious answer."
An Allflex three-way sorting gate which is controlled remotely via Allflex's SenseHub dairy cow monitoring system was subsequently installed at the parlour's exit and can be used to direct cows to an inspection pen and cattle crush, a small segregation yard, or back out to their cubicle accommodation, feed barriers and access to grazing land.
Most dairy farmers install a herd monitoring system to improve their herd's fertility status or to monitor health and rumination parameters, with the ability to sort cows via an automatic segregation gate a secondary benefit. "But for us the emphasis was the other way round," Laura describes. "Our primary goal was to streamline our milking regime, with the ability to identify heat events and monitor for any potential health issues a secondary benefit."
Each freshly calved heifer is fitted with a SenseHub collar as she joins the milking herd, with the SenseHub system programmed to automatically segregate cows for scheduled vet visits (PD scanning, fresh cow check-ups and sick cow investigations) and for AI when they show signs of heat.
The gate also segregates cows in accordance with customisable lists which Laura creates either on the farm's computer or via the SenseHub app on her phone (e.g. for foot trimming) or if they show any abnormal behaviour which could be indicative of irregular heat activity, anoestrus or suspected abortion. The gate can also be controlled manually.
"The biggest benefit is the reduction in labour units," Laura continues. "As a family farm any extra hours were made up by ourselves, with no reward for the additional hours spent in the parlour.
"With the SenseHub collars and sorting gate in place, we no longer have to worry about spotting each and every heat and no longer need to have two people in the parlour twice a day.
"We're saving at least half an hour at each milking, with the whole procedure much less stressful for ourselves and the cows. Using the SenseHub system to control cow movements is a much more accurate and reliable way of working compared to relying on a paper list pinned to the parlour wall, with the added benefit that the herd's fertility scores are also improving."
In 2019, 85% of cows calved within the first six weeks of the calving window, with that figure rising to 87% in 2021.
"My target is to reach 90% as soon as possible, so we're moving in the right direction," Laura continues. "As a block-calving herd, our over-riding priority is to optimise the number of days in milk, so there's a huge amount of pressure to make sure we're inseminating accurately and effectively.
"With SenseHub working in the background we know exactly when each cow should be inseminated, which means our conception rate has improved. As a result, our calving pattern is getting tighter and we're on target to shorten this to a 10-week window instead of the current 12 weeks."
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Laura Elliott used a small business productivity grant to part-fund the installation of the SenseHub collars and sorting gate.
The three-way sorting gate has removed the need for a second person at milking.
Each cow is equipped with her own SenseHub collar which monitors heat and health parameters.
As well as streamlining the milking routine, the SenseHub app is also contributing to the herd's improved reproductive efficiency, with Laura able to interrogate the herd's data and individual cow status from her phone.
As well as being controlled automatically by the SenseHub app, the drafting gate can also be operated manually.
