How Waikato farmer is using CowScout collars for ease of management.
Initially investing in CowScout for ease of management, Andrew Fullerton has been using CowScout for the last seven years to accurately detect heats and monitor his herds' health. CowScout has given Andrew and his team a helping hand to improve success during mating and pick up on illnesses sooner, making for happier cows overall.
Andrew Fullerton runs a 145ha (effective) dairy farm near Te Awamutu, New Zealand. Here, Andrew and his team of two full-time staff milk 500 predominately Friesian cows and calve once-a-year in the Autumn. The farm has been in the Fullerton family for 23 years, with Andrew currently leasing it off his mother and working towards farm ownership in the next five years.
Andrew has been using GEA’s CowScout with DairyPlan for seven years. Monitoring cows 24 hours a day, the collars have been a reliable tool for accurate heat detection and continuous health monitoring.
Andrew says he initially wanted it for ease of management. “With the labour shortages, it was a bit harder getting staff that cared these days. At least with CowScout, I could go on DairyPlan the morning of mating and I would have all the data in front of me,” says Andrew.
Peace of mind has been a big factor. Andrew has confidence that when he goes away, the cows are still being looked after.
“If my staff are second guessing a cow, they can look at CowScout. I’ve found that that my staff who usually aren’t into cows get to know their behaviour and habits a bit easier with it. CowScout is like peace of mind.”
CowScout has also enabled Andrew to improve his six week in-calf rate and condense the mating period.
“You know all heats prior to mating, so it’s easy to do a synchrony programme. You know a 100% that the cows have had a heat, so you can give them PG [Prostaglandin] and you're not wasting money on cows that don't need it,” explains Andrew. I do a lot of embryos here, so just having reliable heat detection for expensive embryos has paid for itself. I’m not just putting an embryo in a cow that is having a first weak heat.”
The first mating with CowScout, Andrew has a 7% better conception rate with 150 embryos. His six week in-calf rate improved by 6% and the empty rate by 2%.
Andrew’s latest pregnancy testing results for fresh embryos resulted in a 75% conception rate. He put it down to be able to utilise all prior heats to make sure his cows are having true heats every 21 to 22 days.
Andrew says the collars have also enable his staff to have a sleep in and reduce their hours towards the end of mating.
“When I’m doing SGL [short gestation length] the last three weeks of mating, I can comfortably milk and draft out the bull cows by myself.”
Last season Andrew’s herd produced 290,000 kgMS from 500 cows. His goal for the 2023/24 season is to do around 630 kgMS per cow.
Andrew milks the herd through a 50-bail GEA rotary with milk metering, drafting and feeding, which integrate with the DairyPlan software.
“It’s all talking to each other. When I go on my DairyPlan dashboard, it’s got the activity and rumination on one screen. And I am feeding off production, so if there are cows not eating as much, they get fed more. If it doesn’t increase, you know you have an issue with rumination,” says Andrew.
“During calving, as a group I look at colostrum cows and freshly calved cows. It’s easy to see after calving that cows are turning towards eating more. The cows that are really crook come up in Urgent Attention.”
When it comes to managing and treating mastitis, Andrew says CowScout helps him to act quickly.
“CowScout has enabled my staff to pick up sick cows before they’re noticeably sick, in terms of not walking to the shed and stuff like that. With environmental mastitis from E. coli through winter milking, a cow goes from eating 6-7 hours a day down to 15 minutes the next day. You can see earlier if a cow is reacting to antibiotics and if she’s not, you can do something about it and get that cow in the vat sooner.”
The collars have large yellow numbers on each side, helping staff easily identify cows - even from a distance. And Andrew doesn’t tag his cows anymore, which has provided an additional saving of $12.00 an animal.
Seven years in, he says what he loves most about CowScout is the fact he owns it outright and gets technical support whenever he needs it.
“When I bought it, I owned it. I’ve had it for coming up seven years and I have not had any subscription fees. If there’s an issue, there’s a backup service,” concludes Andrew.
How Andrew Fullerton uses CowScout for heat detection:
How Andrew Fullerton uses CowScout for health monitoring:
