Keeping cows healthy, acting early on health alerts, improving pregnancy rates and overall herd health are only some of the benefits of Alta’s COW WATCH system.
This technology allows farmers to get a better understanding of each cow’s activities, health and habits, performance trends, and pinpoint the perfect time for artificial insemination — all information that directly relate to a herd’s profitability.
When purchasing a new system, Alta will send a team of experts to take care of the initial installation and put the collars on the cows, before entering the paperwork and collars into a customer’s herd management software.
With an average battery life of 10 years, and a made-to-order system, Alta has the lowest failure rate of around 0.7 per cent for the lifetime of the collars.
After using Alta COW WATCH for just over 12 months, Riverina Milk noted a direct return on investment, with healthier cows and increased pregnancy rates.
Milking 2000 cows, three times a day, Riverina Milk in NSW runs a professional 24-hour milking system and is one of the largest dairies in Australia.
Using the easy-to-use Alta COW WATCH dashboard, Riverina Milk was able to monitor reproduction, and target its AI, reducing the use of hormones.
“With our collars during our working day we’re able to pick up our heats,” Brydee Skeen form Riverina Milk said.
“We’re able to AI cows every day now, rather than putting them through a program and using hormones.
“We’ve been able to save time on doing shots which has also saved us money. We’re able to just let them be and we can tell when they’re on heat now.”
With an overall goal to have healthier cows and increasing reproduction, Ms Skeen said the Alta COW WATCH collars had them on the right track.
“The collars have been good to pick up when cows have been sick. The information we get about eating and ruminating from Alta COW WATCH is whether they have increased in activity, or they’ve decreased their eating time,” she said.
“We’ve then been able to draft off those cows and have a look at them and determine what is wrong with them.
“We do pick up quite a few cows that have digestive issues and we never would have been able to pick that up, so that’s amazing.
“We want to work more towards having healthy cows and getting cows pregnant and the collar system will help us do this.”
Combining an unmatched range of features in a single and highly advanced, yet easy-to-use system, there are no ongoing service or support fees with Alta’s system. The quoted price is all customers would pay.
Alta Genetics’ Operations and Alta COW WATCH manager Jayde Lee said the ongoing support on-farm or over the phone from her team was a huge point of difference with the Alta product.
“It gives our farmers peace of mind, knowing there is always someone they can call when they need support or guidance with the system,” she said.
“We know the system, but we also know cows — which provides reassurance to our farmers that they have partnered with a team that can help them understand the data and achieve great results across their herd.”
Focused on reproduction and getting cows pregnant, the Alta COW WATCH system has had proven impact across Australia, with more efficient herds, improving fertility, reduced semen usage, and has led to healthier cows, and increased milk production.
For more information, go to: https://australia.altagenetics.com/products/alta-cow-watch/