Farmers are losing £85 to £215 per cow due to poor fertility and poor breeding performance according to national figures. While the impact is often hidden, it is one of the biggest drains on profitability within dairy and suckler herds.
The cost can exceed £215 per cow per month for farmers at the bottom end of the scale, with a calving interval of over 425 days – due to lower output, higher inputs and increased culling rates.
Boosting breeding performance on a 120-cow dairy herd could increase farm profit by £17,121 per annum. In a 50-cow suckler farm, the figure is close to £6,850 per annum, according to national figures.
Farmers can now monitor the breeding activity of their herd 24/7 from the comfort of their phone thanks to Moocall HEAT.
Moocall has been pioneering the development of wearable technology on cows with sales of its Moocall Calving Sensor now in over 60 countries. The company’s latest innovation sends a text when a cow enters a standing heat.
CEO Emmet Savage said: “In the current climate, it’s critical for farmers to optimise their performance wherever they can. We believe we have solved the problem of heat detection for AI with Moocall HEAT which carries massive potential gains for farmers, be it suckler or dairy.
“Moocall HEAT will allow farmers monitor the breeding activity of the herd on their phones on a minute by minute basis if they wish to.”
Farmers using AI simply fit the Moocall HEAT collar to a teaser bull with an electronic tag inserted into each of the breeding animals in the herd. The device will correlate his activity to the corresponding cow.
A farmer will then get a text to his phone and app telling him when a cow is in standing heat. Savage maintains that extensive testing of the device on farms over the past year has delivered conception rates of around 90%.
