Kentucky Dairy Notes New Technologies and Trends in Precision Dairy Monitoring By: Matthew Borchers and Jeffrey Bewley Precision dairy monitoring has provided dairy farmers with many new and interesting management opportunities. Recent publications and presentations by researchers and industry representatives represent some new directions in precision dairy monitoring. New Technologies Image Analysis An interesting concept in precision dairy monitoring technologies is the use of image analysis on dairy farms. The benefit of on-farm image analysis would be a reduction in technology costs. For instance, instead of affixing tags to every cow, camera images identifying animals through conformational traits and markings would track cow activity, lying and standing behavior, lameness, body condition score, respiration rate, feeding behavior, and many others. These technologies are still young and limitations exist regarding their current implementation, but this is definitely an area of interest for many technology manufacturers. Virtual Fences Many dairy farmers worldwide still extensively use grazing systems. This creates some interesting issues and opportunities for dairy farmers. With rotational grazing, pasture fence management can be labor intensive. Additionally, identifying animals needing attention and
December 2016 locating them on expansive pastures can be challenging. Virtual fences may be the answer to these problems. Virtual fences use GPS or animal triangulation (relay stations to identify animal position and location) to locate animals. Virtual fences are established at the farmer’s discretion. A set threshold is established, and cows are discouraged from crossing by warnings and a gentle electric shock. As cows approach these virtual fences, auditory warnings are issued via a collar or tag fixed around their neck. If cows surpass the set threshold, a gentle shock is issued to encourage cows to return to the specified pasture area. Challenges still exist in regards to tag size, power requirements, and effective distance between cows and readers for virtual fence technologies. Future versions of these technologies should correct these problems and increase their attractiveness.
Cow Time Budgeting, Movement, and Location Animal position and location is not limited to pasture. Animal position and location systems are available and gaining in popularity, especially in Europe. These systems allow farmers to track cow movements within a barn. These systems triangulate a cow’s position, and follow it as cows move throughout the barn. This enables a user of this technology to track an individual cow’s movement, and monitor where the majority of a cow’s time is spent. This can serve as an addition tool in diagnosing estrus or health alerts when used in combination with traditional metrics (e.g. activity, lying behavior, feeding time, rumination time, etc.).
Alerts and Precision Dairy Monitoring Technologies
A recent issue in precision dairy monitoring is alerts, specifically health alerts. Detecting cows struggling in early lactation is a goal for technology companies and dairy producers alike. Many have heard the saying, “there are three rations on a dairy farm: the ration that’s formulated, the ration that’s mixed, and the ration that’s consumed by the cow.” A similar saying can be used in regards to alerts and precision dairy farming, “There are three types of actions following an alert from a precision dairy monitoring technology: the action that should be performed, the action that’s recommended based on technology information, and the action that’s actually taken by the farmer.” Frequently, identifying specific diseases (e.g. ketosis, milk fever, metritis, etc.) is not possible and technologies take a “shotgun” approach to disease detection by looking for deviations from normal cow and herd behavior. Unfortunately, this is not always effective and tends to create alerts that producers do not always trust, are not sure how to handle, and frequently take no action upon. Recent estimates from researchers at the University of Kentucky indicate that producers disregard nearly 65% of health alerts generated by technologies. This can be for several reasons. Frequently technologies are not able to correctly identify a disorder, or generate false alerts. This causes producers to begin to distrust alerts when they occur. A second explanation is that disorders are subclinical and the technologies are correctly identifying these events. In cases without clinical symptoms, these alerts are often regarded as false. In the future, companies should work closely with farmers to refine alerts. Refining these alerts and providing meaningful suggestions and support following alerts may allow dairy farmers to make timely and meaningful decisions. Conclusion With exciting and new technologies on the horizon, many opportunities exist for monitoring on a dairy farm. Technology advances are exciting and allow new levels of management to be attained, but care should be taken to ensure dairy farmers are being provided meaningful information with which they may take meaningful actions. More research and development is needed with new and existing technologies to ensure this is accomplished.
Dairy Market Continues to Struggle Kenny Burdine and Tyler Mark, UK Ag Economics Like many agricultural sectors, 2016 has not been kind to dairy producers. The decrease in farm-level milk prices over the last 24 months has rivaled that of any two-year period in recent history. All the usual suspects have contributed to the decline including increased production, decreased export levels, and weaker markets for most dairy products. Figure 1 shows US All Milk price from 2012 to 2016. Note the sharp drop starting in the fall of 2014 and the steady decline from fall 2015 through this summer. Figure 1: US All Milk Price Jan 2012 to Aug 2016 ($ per cwt)
Source: Understanding Dairy Markets and Author Calculations Declining feed prices have only softened the blow somewhat and margins remain very tight. US corn price was $0.42 per bushel lower in August of 2016 than August of 2014, while US All Milk price was down by $7.10 per cwt. Figure 2 depicts MPP-Dairy margin from January 2012 to August 2016, which is the last month that data was available at the time of this writing. The margin calculation used in the MPP-Dairy program includes US All Milk, corn, alfalfa hay, and soybean meal. While the MPP margin doesn’t perfectly describe an individual dairy operation, it does do a good job capturing the overall milk / feed price relationship and is relevant, as over 58% of dairy operations are now enrolled in the MPP-Dairy program (USDA FSA). Much discussion this summer centered around the first sizeable payments made from this program as the MPP-Dairy margin averaged $7.15 for the March-April couplet and $5.76 for the May-June couplet. This was the first time, since the program’s inception, that payments were received at a coverage level lower than $8. To put this in perspective, a producer enrolled at the $8 level would have a received payment of $0.85 per cwt on 1/6 (two months) of their annual enrollment for March-April and $2.24 per cwt for MayJune. The two payments combined would be a little over $0.51 per cwt if annualized, which would have slightly exceeded the $8 premium level of $0.48 per cwt for covered milk under 4 million lbs. Put simply, producers who enrolled in MPP-Dairy at highest $8 level would have received slightly more in payments than they spent in premiums in 2016. And, it is possible that additional payments could be received for the September-October and November-December couplets.
Figure 2: MPP-Dairy Margin Jan 2012 to Aug 2016 ($ per cwt)
Source: Understanding Dairy Markets and Author Calculations While over half of dairy operations are enrolled in the MPP-Dairy program, very few chose coverage levels that would have received payments in 2016. According to FSA, over three-fourths chose the lowest $4 coverage level and over 97% chose $6.50 or lower. So payments that were made this year went to a small number of operations that enrolled at higher levels. Given the current state of profitability in the dairy sector, it is very likely that many producers will choose to enroll at higher levels for 2017. Further, USDA has extended the deadline for enrollment for 2017 into December of 2016. So, producers will have the ability to decide on their enrollment levels up until about two weeks before the new year begins. By all means, producers should consider their options with this program and see how it might fit within their overall risk management plan. We would also add that producers may want to consider other risk management strategies in addition to MPP-Dairy. Producers currently enrolled in MPP-Dairy are ineligible for the LGM-Dairy program, but this remains an option for many. Further, producers still have the ability to utilize contracting, futures, options, and other risk management strategies to manage downside risk on milk price and upside risk on feed prices. There is no single solution for managing risk for a dairy operation and no policy tool will work perfectly. Rather, producers should be aware of all the tools at their disposal and make an informed decision about which fit best given their goals.
Kentucky Dairy Partners Meeting February 21 & 22, 2017 Sloan Convention Center Bowling Green, KY
Kentucky Excels at Pennsylvania All-American Dairy Judging Contest By: Larissa Tucker Kentucky was well represented at the 2016 All-American Dairy Show in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The University of Kentucky Dairy Judging Team took first place in the collegiate division at the contest. Matthew Borchers, a graduate assistant in the Department of Animal and Food Sciences is the coach of the University of Kentucky Dairy Judging Team. Team members of the University of Kentucky team are Jacob Barnett, Rachel Hinton, Tyler Nichols and Rachel Sibert. The team placed first overall; first in Ayrshire, Jersey and Guernsey; third in Holstein; and fourth in reasons. Team members earned several individual awards. Barnett placed first overall; first in Jersey, second in Guernsey and third in Ayrshire. Nichols placed third overall and fifth in Guernsey and Ayrshire. Sibert placed 10th overall.
At the All-American 4-H Dairy Judging Contest, the Kentucky 4-H team placed fourth overall. Team members are John Brumley, Max Dipple, Ally Jones and Luke Williamson. The team placed first in Jerseys in the 4-H contest and was second place team in Holstein. Ally Jones was 11th placed individual overall; fifth in Jersey and seventh in Brown Swiss. John Brumley placed second in Jersey and seventh in Holstein. Luke Williamson placed fifth in Holstein. They are coached by Larissa Tucker and George Heersche, Jr.
Also participating in the All-American was the Spencer County FFA team. The FFA team finished sixth in their division. The team members are Alexis Adams, Michael Bentley, Connor Foster and Trinity Johnson. They placed first in Guernsey, second in Jersey and fifth in Brown Swiss as a team. Trinity was third in Guernsey and Alexis was fourth in Guernsey. The coach is Bland Baird. We would like to thank the following breeders who served as hosts for the workouts: Fairdale Farm, Keightley and Core Jerseys, Eastern Kentucky University Dairy, and the University of Kentucky Dairy. Valuable support also came from the UK College of Agriculture, Food and Environment and the UK Department of Animal and Food Sciences.
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New Technologies and Trends in Precision
February 21 & 22
Dairy Monitoring
Kentucky Dairy Partners Meeting Bowling Green, KY
Dairy Market Continues to Struggle Kentucky Excels at Pennsylvania All-American Dairy Judging Contest
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