The Claxton farming family from Co. Waterford have put their trust in the Censortec system after a difficult spring.
Following poor weather the last number of months, many farmers may be looking at ways to improve their bottom line and reduce the stress on man and beast.
During busy times of the year, it can be challenging to keep on top of things, particularly watching for the early signs of the illness.
Clinical, or visible, and subclinical, or invisible, illnesses can have a significant financial and welfare implications for farmers.
Teagasc research estimates the cost of clinical and subclinical mastitis at €117/cow, in a 100-cow herd.
Subclinical mastitis makes up the largest share of this figure of €103 per cow, due to costs from milk penalties, and drops in milk production. It’s crucial to identify cows early to save costs.
Research carried out in 2004 estimated the cost of lameness at €300/case but considering inflation and cost increases across the board in the last 20 years, it is fair to say that each individual lameness case now has a bigger financial impact.
Other diseases such milk fever and ketosis also have a financial implication. An article published in the Veterinary Ireland Journal in 2021 estimates that milk fever has an average cost of €7,625/100 cows.
As with mastitis, the majority of this cost comes from the subclinical cases, which cost €6,250 per 100 cows.
Identifying or preventing these illnesses while they’re at the early stages, before they progress to clinical illnesses, will improve animal welfare and their financial impact.
Technical advisor at Norbrook, Maura Langan said: “Irish farmers produce high welfare, sustainable beef and dairy and, as any industry, we are always striving to improve outcomes.
“As we try to reduce the need for antibiotics, early diagnosis and prevention of clinical disease is good for cattle, good for farmers, and good for consumers.”
Censortec
One way to help identify sick cows is through continuous health monitoring.
Censortec CowControl powered by Nedap is an activity monitor that provides 24/7 data on your cows’ health and fertility.
CowControl measures the time a cow spends eating , ruminating, being inactive and showing other active behaviour.
The system then compares this behaviour with standards for optimum condition, the previous behaviour of the cow and the behaviour of the herd.
It turns this information into relevant alerts, to-do lists and reports for farmers to effectively manage the health of each cow and the entire herd.
The recently launched Health Score is available to all CowControl users and presents data on each cow’s health in an easy-to-use way.
Sean Crowley of Censortec Ireland explained: “CowControl was already providing health already providing health alerts from cows that may have issues.
“The new Health Score is a score from one to 10 that shows the health status of each individual cow at a glance, plus a unique indicator of whether the health status has improved or deteriorated in the last few hours.
“With this numerical, objective score, the dairy does not have to assess the severity of the health issues himself, saving a lot of time, especially on large farms.”
David, Sarah and Andrew and Claxton milk 500 spring calving cows in Stradbally, Co. Waterford, and have been Censortec customers for three years.
Sarah said: “We swear by the collars. If a cow has a high health score on Nedap Now, we draft her out and we always find something.
“There was a cow that had a change in her health score, and at first look we didn’t see anything. I kept an eye on her, and noticed she wasn’t coming into the parlour in her usual place. I knew there was definitely something wrong
“I was stripping her at milking, watching for mastitis, and two days after the first alert she showed clinical signs.
“We picked her up before her high SCC milk hit the tank, and by spotting it early we prevented it spreading to other cows as well. It’s a brilliant tool.”
Since installing CowControl, Sarah and Andrew have found that the farm has reduced it’s antibiotic use, and vet call-outs.
Sarah said: “We had the vet out for the first time this spring just last week. We’re using less antibiotics because we get on top of things before the cow gets too sick.
“The minute the cow’s behaviour changes, CowControl tells us, and we can get in before we need to call a vet. As you get used to the system you trust it more.
“When we had health alerts first, we’d look at the cow and not see anything wrong, but we’ve learned to trust the system.
“Those cows that alert with nothing obviously wrong, we pay them more attention for the next few days. CowControl is nearly always right; an issue will become clear as time goes on.”
Herd health data
David, Sarah and Andrew have been using CowControl’s herd health data in conjunction with Norbrook’s Calcitrace D3 bolus. Every cow in the herd gets a bolus to prevent milk fever, which had been an issue on farm due to the herd’s genetics.
“We had a Kiwi cross type cow, and the Jersey-type animals were more susceptible to milk fever.
“Every cow gets a bolus now, and we monitor the more high-risk cows, the older cows or ones with more Jersey genetics, and if their activity changes or they get a health alert, we treat with a second bolus.
“It’s made a big difference to the amount of milk fever we’re seeing,” explained Sarah.
Maura Langan added: “Milk fever in dairy cattle is a true veterinary emergency, while subclinical hypocalcaemia can be a causative factor in many transition cow disorders including mastitis and LDAs.
“By supplementing with Calcitrace D3 to provide both fast and slow-release calcium, the cow is supported through the risk period until she can meet her calcium requirements naturally.”
Johnny and Jerome O’Brien, who farm in Barryroe, Co. Cork, have been using Censortec CowControl since 2022. They find that CowControl health monitoring is an essential tool on farm.
Jerome said: “We probably underestimated the effect of the health side of things. We didn’t do any sort of routine health monitoring, and now that CowControl does it for us we see how important it is.
“We’re definitely picking up sick cows 12-24 hours earlier than we were before. We can treat them, and then you have the data from CowControl to show you if that treatment is helping them to improve, or if they’re getting worse.”
Any cow that gets a health alert is checked in the milking parlour, and if the problem isn’t identified there, a more detailed check is carried out in the crush.
“More often than not, it saves us having to call the vets, and we can use less aggressive treatments.
“Last year, we didn’t have any mastitis tubes after April, because we were picking up any udder issues before they developed into full blown mastitis,” Jerome said.
Censortec CowControl has impacted the way transition cows are managed in the herd too.
“It’s a great tool after calving. Before, we would have missed subclinical ketotic cows.
“Now as soon as we see milk drop and rumination decrease, we treat with a bolus and they improve quickly, whereas before you could have had a cow with a full-blown case of ketosis needing the vet.
“It saves the cow suffering, and it saves us the cost of a vet visit,” he added.
Censortec CowControl powered by Nedap is available from Censortec, who are based in Co. Kerry. Censortec are the agents for Nedap CowControl in the ROI and NI.
Censortec have been supplying Nedap SmartTag since 2016 and have a long-established relationship with Nedap, who is based in Groenlo in the Netherlands.
They are the leading supplier of bovine activity monitors globally having over 40 years of experience in developing, supporting and marketing their SmartTag.
