Insightful treatment overview helps identify health problems and need for solutions
Dairy farm, 350 Dairy cows
Read how good data and insights together with a strong focus on replacement stock are making an impact at Mackie’s.
Calves
Health
monitoring
tags
insight
Pneumonia
BRD
Early Intervention
alerts
Introduction
Mackies is a large dairy farm business based in Aberdeenshire, famed for its ice-cream production. The modern dairy unit utilizes cutting edge technologies in the husbandry of the 300-cow herd. Replacement heifers are reared in a purpose-built calf unit.
Challenge
Although they had excellent stockmanship, a lack of centralized record for treatment usage across the large unit meant it was hard to get a full picture of treatments given to calves and to understand the scale of any issues.
Solution
Under the WellCalf program, each calf was given a Smartbell tag to monitor temperature and activity and provide individual animal health status reports. Calf treatments were entered in the Smartbell Premium app giving instant insight into treatment numbers, with colour coding allowing easy understanding of the reasons for treatment. The data set also builds up a record of treatments over time comparing month-on-month figures and identifying disease trends, informing better heard health planning.
I was originally cynical about the use of the data, but now we look at the app 2 or 3 times a day. Our antibiotic usage has gone down and the calves turn around much quicker.
Reduced disease incidence autumn 35%
Decreased antibiotic use 20%
2 years’ treatment records uploaded
Want to chat with someone on the team to implement this in your farm?
We are passionate about technology and love calves!
We believe that the data generated and collected by farms should work to empower their decision making, improve animal health and improve profit margins.
Contact Info
- +44 7743 674531
- wellcalf@smartbell.io
- Smartbell, 47 Norfolk Street, Cambridge, CB1 2LD
