Farm Management Focus: Managing and Responding to Farm Data
By Tom Hough, Director at Gro-Agri ltd.
I read with interest a Vet Focus article by Neil Fox and I wanted to start this one by reinforcing a point he made, which was the importance of ensuring recorded data is accurate, to enable correct interpretation and responses to that data, and to add another cliché of “Rubbish in, Rubbish out”.
What data sets should dairy farmers focus on?
This will all depend on what systems and programs the individual farm has and is utilising, and there are many in number but in general I would be looking at population, fertility, performance, health and mobility data. By milk recording with CIS you have access to capture this range of data and much more, for example for the last 4 years we have been utilising the CIS specialist fatty acid report which is highlighting the potential to develop automated alert systems that further assist us in herd health monitoring.
What trends do they need to look for?
We use CIS milk recording data to review annual, quarterly and monthly changes, to highlight improvements in areas such as animal exits (especially to highlight time of exit), and fertility trends focusing on pregnancy rate and particularly looking at conception and submission rate trends. Milk output can be reviewed to highlight animals that have lost more milk than is expected (don’t forget to celebrate exceptional performance too). Health is a huge area that can be reviewed over time to give an overview and help us make longer term farm decisions, but thankfully new, smart technology is continually evolving and is excellent at giving us hourly health status alerts that can be the difference literally between life and death.
Setting and monitoring benchmarks
For benchmarking to be an effective tool for the farm you need to have a system that is consistent and can be run quickly and you need to decide what data is important to the farm business and understand why. Immediately after a CIS milk recording is made available to us, we import the data into a 3rd party analysis program, Interherd +. This allows us to create a bespoke and consistent report, enabling us to review our customer farms data, providing us with a monthly snapshot of performance in relation to the farm itself, and this also has a benchmark system embedded within it.
Setting the benchmarks is farm specific and needs to be agreed by the Farm Team. That Team tends to consist of the Farmer(s) (the heart of business), plus the other trusted stakeholders in the business for example the Vet, ideally the Foot trimmer and of course us at Gro-Agri. I will create a benchmarking document as a starting point and then we work together to create the agreed targets. Time is key as we create a long term 3 year target of where we want to be but then create an achievable first step (12month goal) as we cannot expect to hit some targets overnight.
The greatest successes occur on farm when the team works together for a common goal.
Key data to be tracking
Typical recording data analysis would include:
- Population data - is there a trend of animals leaving the herd too early, and if so why?
- Fertility data - what are the monthly and rolling conception and submission rates doing, and how are the routine vet visits progressing?
- Performance data - how is the herd performing across all lactations and stages of lactation? Highlight cows or heifers that have fallen off more than they should, and understand if there is a reason.
- Health data - cell count analysis to identify animals that need culture and sensitivity tests to check how best to treat (driven by the Vet team), understanding if the dry period is effective in controlling cell counts. Johnes monitoring and tracking tools. Mobility and BCS monitoring through lactation. Key fatty acids can highlight ketosis risks. Live health data needs to be monitored and flagged hourly/daily to help diagnose critical issues and the science is impressive and is continually evolving.
Summary
Making data work for you is the key by keeping it consistent, relevant and manageable.
Too much data can be overwhelming and will then sometimes be ignored.
Inaccurate data is just a waste of time and money.
Analysing the data is only part of the story of course, taking the correct actions is what really matters, this is where a great Farm Team comes into its own.
Tom Hough, Director Gro-Agri Ltd
M. 07776 589180
W. gro-agri.com