tify sick co en
ai24™’s before HR-Tag™ Like X-Ray Vision on Vermont Dairy
clinical signs of illness
Joe Allen of Allendale Holsteins in Vergennes, Vermont, doesn’t have x-ray vision when it comes to cow health. But he has the next best thing…. Rumination data through ai24™’s HR-Tag™. Dairy producers, veterinarians and nutritionists have long relied on cud chewing (both the sights and sounds of rumination) as a key monitor of dairy cow health, and with good reason. Because cows ruminate 450 – 500 minutes per day, a drop in rumination time is a clear sign that there’s something impacting rumen function or animal well-being. Rumination monitoring can provide an early window for diagnosis.
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explains, noting that at first glance you wouldn’t think she was sick. “She appeared healthy and was milking well, but we checked her anyway and found that she had a fever of 107˚ F. We treated her right away, she recovered quickly and she never lost any milk production. The system always picks up sick cows - I can give you about a dozen examples of this.”
“Cows that look perfectly healthy, but have reduced rumination data, will almost always have a significant problem 24 hours later if you do nothing,” says Joe’s wife, Dr. Becky Allen, a veterinarian who has used the system with other clients, as well. “Usually, she’ll run a higher temperature if you check her, but you’d not know Reduction in rumination may that she’s clinically ill just by be an early disease indicator looking at the cow.”
the opportunity to intervene and head off challenges before they would otherwise have realized a problem. As Allen has learned, “The cow may look alright, but the thermometer will say differently when you check her.” “During a recent pneumonia outbreak, we had a cow come up on the HR-Tag’s health report,” he
What Allendale Holsteins has experienced has been confirmed in university research. One research trial1 compared electronic rumination monitoring with visual observation of rumination monitoring, and found the electronic system results were highly correlated with those of visual observation. Monitoring rumination with an electronic system also provides a numerical value for each day’s rumen function, and compares it to the individual animal’s
average. This can prove especially effective when changes in rumination patterns occur before acute symptoms of a major health event are seen. “The system helps us catch things much earlier and improve the odds of a successful outcome,” says Becky Allen. “We can intervene earlier and work with cows that are not as sick as if you’d waited for clinical signs to appear. You can also see the impact of ration changes using the data.” “The health information we’ve been able to use since we installed the SCR Activity and Rumination Monitoring System in December 2011 has really been helpful,” says Joe Allen. The system features revolutionary technology that combines rumination, heat detection and cow identification functionality in one unit, giving dairy producers a tool to monitor their cows 24 hours a day. This technology will allow dairy producers to shift the way they manage and interact with their herd, providing value through early detection of health problems and estrus, which can translate to increased production, higher pregnancy rates and fewer costs associated with disease treatment. The system enables the farmers to make decisions and manage their herd in an efficient and cost-effective way. Adopting this technology has been a boost to
ai24™ newsletter fall 2012 pg 1