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Precision Dairy Farming (PDF)

Precision Dairy Farming (PDF). Mike Coffey, Jeffrey Bewley Mike.coffey@sac.ac.uk jbewley@uky.edu www.bewleydairy.com. Future Dairy Operations. Last 20 years has increasingly emphasised animal health, welfare, food quality, choice, differentiation, consumer values

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Precision Dairy Farming (PDF)

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  1. Precision Dairy Farming(PDF) Mike Coffey, Jeffrey Bewley Mike.coffey@sac.ac.uk jbewley@uky.edu www.bewleydairy.com

  2. Future Dairy Operations • Last 20 years has increasingly emphasised animal health, welfare, food quality, choice, differentiation, consumer values • Next 30 will have increased food demand as an additional pressure as well as • Larger dairy operations will remain in business • Narrower profit margins • Increased feed, energy and labor costs • Cows managed by fewer more technically skilled workers • Greater degree of automation

  3. Farm Information • Unlimited on-farm data storage • Web based backup options • Faster computers allow more sophisticated on-farm and real time data processing • Integrated data management and decision support systems • Technologies adopted in larger industries (defence, consumer electronics) reduce costs for applications in smaller industries (agriculture)

  4. PDF: Definition • Current farms can be ‘precise’ • Is a continuous scale • Existing examples may include • Automatic out of parlour feeders • Pedometers • In-line electrical conductivity

  5. PDF: Key Elements Using technologies to measure physiological, behavioral, and production indicators Supplement the observational activities of skilled herdspersons Focus on health and performance at the cow level Optimise economic, social, and environmental farm performance

  6. PDF: Key Elements Make more timely and informed decisions Minimise medication (antibiotics) through preventive health Pro-active animal health strategy Precision Dairy Farming is inherently an interdisciplinary field incorporating concepts of informatics, biostatistics, ethology, economics, animal breeding, animal husbandry, animal nutrition and process engineering

  7. PDF Examples Precision (individual) feeding Regular milk recording (yield and components) Pedometers (activity meters) Pressure plates Milk conductivity indicators Automatic estrus detection Body weight Temperature

  8. Recent or Future Technologies Lying behavior Ruminal pH Heart rate Global positioning systems Feeding behavior Blood analyses Respiration rates Rumination time Locomotion scoring using image analysis

  9. Automatic Condition Score

  10. Condition Score (Thin Cow)

  11. Body Condition Scoring • 100% of predicted BCS were within 0.50 points of actual BCS. • 93% were within 0.25 points of actual BCS.

  12. Body Condition Scoring

  13. IceTag Activity Monitor On-farm evaluation of lying time: Identification of cows requiring attention (lameness, illness, estrus) through changes in patterns Assessment of facility functionality/cow comfort Potential metric to assess animal well-being

  14. Future for “fitness” trait recording Feeding behaviour Short-term feeding behaviour changes with the onset of disorders Early disease detection system Foul of foot, González et al., JDS, 2008

  15. Milk spectra data Milk fatty acid and lactoferrin content Variation within & across breeds Soyeurt et al. JDS, 2006 • This information could also be used to predict “fitness” (EU funded RobustMilk project)

  16. Possible PDF Technologies Health/oestrus (activity monitors) Pregnancy (progesterone) Image analysis for anatomical measurements Milk fatty acid composition (spectra) Stress levels (cortisol) Environment gas levels (i.e. CO2, NH3) Air born pathogen levels Pollutants Zoonoses

  17. Genomics • Precision Dairy Farming/genomic selection synergies may lead to improvement in health traits • But, need enough high quality phenotypic data to calculate the SNP effects • Maybe contract certain farms to record data • May have to pay for data

  18. PDF Reality Check • Maybe not be #1 priority for commercial dairy producers (yet) • Many technologies are in infancy stage • Promoted by technophiles • Not all technologies are good investments • Economics must be examined • Sociological factors must be considered

  19. Conclusions • Exciting technologies now available and more in development • Technologies may have considerable impact on genetic evaluations • Harvesting data • Payments to record collectors • Adoption rates affected by sociological factors and technology development strategies • Will lead to bigger dairy herds but successful implementation relies on software to integrate all available information running on fault free hardware in a hostile environment

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