Increasing dairy farm efficiency through key software and service

Steve Cope is no stranger to the ins and outs of running a dairy farm.

He has been managing his family’s Bawhill Farm in Adderley, Market Drayton for years and is always looking for new and innovative ways to enable the farm to operate more efficiently.

With 1,100 dairy cows being milked three times a day, Steve and his team have their work cut out for them.

They found their savior in Afimilk, with a complete system that has improved farm management across the board.

From higher cow pregnancy rates, to lower vet bills, to clear visibility into relevant data, Bawhill Farm is running more effectively and efficiently than ever before.

What started with a goal of increasing the efficiency of the milking process, resulted in the installation of the full Afimilk suite of tools with stellar outcomes.

Increased pregnancy rates

The farm was used to seeing reproduction rates in the low to mid-teens.

Despite hearing about 30% pregnancy rates in the USA, Steve believed that this number was a mere pipe dream in the UK.

He was thrilled to discover “with Afimilk collars, we can achieve these high levels of performance which were somewhat unbelievable.” Today, Bawhill Farm easily sees pregnancy rates of 35-37%.

Simplified daily routine

The beauty of the Afimilk products is their interconnectivity.

Instead of having separate systems for the collars, the milking parlor, the sort gate, etc., each element of the Afi system seamlessly communicates with the others.

For Steve, this has meant a complete simplification of the daily routine.

“Herd management is made so much easier because the cows that we want end up within the segpen for us to deal with,” he explains.

The collars are linked up with the sort gate, ensuring that each cow goes where it needs to be to get the specific attention or treatment that it needs.

Whether it is a cow with suspected mastitis that needs to be checked by a vet or a cow in heat ready for insemination, nothing falls between the cracks and no time is wasted.

Cost savings

Vet expenses are a huge budget-line item for many farms including Bawhill.

The vet would have to come on a regular basis to assess cows showing symptoms of sickness or to deal with inseminations.

If illness was not detected early enough, vet costs could become even higher as more complex treatment is needed.

With the introduction of the Afi system, vet time and costs have been cut massively due to the accuracy of both heat detection and cow sorting.

Accurate heat detection means more successful inseminations in fewer vet visits. And, suspected illnesses are caught significantly earlier resulting in faster and less expensive intervention.

Effective sorting of all cows ensures that any cow that needs to see the vet for any reason will do so in one visit.

Better decision making

Knowledge is power, and the information that Steve and other farm workers have at their fingertips with the AfiFarm software gives them all the data they need to make effective business management decisions.

Steve Cope says: “It’s better to have the information on one platform with all the information there, linking milk yield, conductivity, heat detection, rumination, eating times, and all the other functions in one place so that we can better make decisions on how to manage our cows.”

The software is continuously being updated and upgraded to keep farms running as smoothly as possible.

The Bawhill Farm team sees the benefits every day as it keeps track of its cows’ behaviour and is able to troubleshoot and solve small problems before they turn into larger challenges.

There is no question that the data they can access enables the team to make the decisions that result in achieving and maintaining high pregnancy rates.

Behind-the-scenes support

It’s one thing to have tools in place that can help a farm run more efficiently. But, technology does not always function as it is meant to, and it is equally, if not more important, to have support available when needed.

According to Steve, “Afimilk support is second to none. It doesn’t matter what time of the day it is, if we’ve had a problem we can dial in and within half an hour our problem is normally solved and we are sorted back up and running.”

Bottom line

By implementing the full Afimilk solution, Steve Cope has been able to upgrade his dairy farm’s performance while keeping costs down.

A combination of the quality of the solution, the user friendliness of the software, and the customer support and service has led him to state: “Our satisfaction is very very very good.”

To find out more, visit the Afimilk website.