Data adds detail to stockmanship on Staveley dairy farm

This episode is a paid partnership with SenseHub® Dairy powered by MSD Animal Health.

A Mid Canterbury dairy farmer says collars and a drafting gate now cover cow-picking, health checks and breeding decisions across the family herd.

Rob Withers, a dairy farmer at Withers Farming Co Ltd in Springburn near Staveley, says the family chose SenseHub Dairy Collars and an IntelliGate drafting gate after years of standing at the front of the shed pulling a rope to pick cows.

“We went full hog and we put both on, and it took the pressure off me,” he says.

Rob’s parents farmed sheep and beef from 1962 before the family converted to dairy with 120 cows, and the herd now numbers 700. He says son Pete has taken the technology further since coming home.

Pete says the SenseHub Dairy Collars back up his stockmanship with what is going on inside the animal. A heifer’s rumen crashed overnight last week, and mastitis turned up when she was drafted the next morning.

“We wouldn’t have picked her up for probably 4 or 5 days or whatever it would have been until we would have found her normally,” he says.

Pete says he is trialling once-a-day milking for younger cows that are struggling in the main herd, with a review of each one after two weeks. He pulls up every candidate on his phone while milking to check her number and her rumination.

“Has she had a heat? If she hasn’t had a heat yet, she’s getting white tape on her tail.”

Pete says a 16 to 20-hour mating window he picked up from a SenseHub video he watched last year lifted conception to sexed semen to 65%.

“So, this year I’m trusting it even further, and we’re going to do more sexed semen.”

Laura Christensen, South Island Sales Lead for SenseHub Dairy, says the Withers farm runs an IntelliGate drafting gate alongside the collars.

“Being able to bring the girls through and have them drafted out without having to rush around in the paddock and pull them out from there has really improved things on farm around the fact that they are so quiet and so calm,” she says.

Pete says he worried in his first year with the technology on the farm that it would deliver too much information at once.

“It’s actually just very easy to deal with. You have just got to go into it headfirst and just soak up as much as possible.”

This episode is a paid partnership with SenseHub® Dairy powered by MSD Animal Health. To learn more about SenseHub® Dairy’s modular dairy system that combines animal behaviour monitoring, milk intelligence and automation in one connected platform, visit www.sensehub.co.nz  

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