Nedap is launching Heat Detection with Standing and Lying Monitoring, a comprehensive solution that enables dairy farmers to continuously and automatically monitor heat, health and well-being aspects of their entire herd.
Launch of Nedap Heat Detection with Standing and Lying Monitoring
Nedap is launching Heat Detection with Standing and Lying Monitoring, a comprehensive solution that enables dairy farmers to continuously and automatically monitor heat, health and well-being aspects of their entire herd. The new Standing and Lying Monitoring functionality monitors five of a cow's daily behavioural aspects: standing, lying and walking times, the number of times she stands up, and the number of steps she takes per day. A cow shows the same pattern of behaviour and movements every day. Standing and Lying Monitoring accurately reflects these behaviour patterns. Any changes in one of these aspects indicate that there may be something wrong with the animal concerned. The Nedap Heat Detection system with Standing and Lying Monitoring detects these changes at great distances 24/7 and identifies animals in the herd in heat or with possible health problems in good time. This enables the livestock farmer to easily achieve better fertility results and to monitor and promptly treat animals with possible health problems or risks. The system therefore plays a key part in the quest for sustainable dairy farming, while increasing the number of lactations and the life span of the animals. In addition, the livestock farmer can achieve and maintain the best possible production results from every animal, no matter how big the herd is. The new functionality is an addition to the well-known Nedap Heat Detection system, which will remain available at the same price.
Nedap Heat Detection with Standing and Lying Monitoring
Developments around the automatic tracking and monitoring of individual animals are progressing in leaps and bounds. Besides Heat Detection, Nedap is focusing on automatic detection of more and more behavioural aspects and signals that indicate the health and well-being of individual animals and enable them to be treated preventively. With the need to upscale and produce sustainably, automatic monitoring of individual animals is something farmers can't afford to be without. Focusing on the fertility, health and well-being of the individual animal can considerably increase the farm's total yield.
A cow shows the same pattern of behaviour and movements every day. With this in mind, Nedap is launching Standing and Lying Monitoring. This system gives a representative picture of this daily behaviour pattern based on five behavioural aspects: the time the cow spends lying, standing and walking, the number of times she stands up, and the number of steps she takes per day.
The behavioural aspects monitored by Standing and Lying Monitoring were chosen for good reason. A cow feels on top form and performs best when she has a daily routine of repeated behaviour and events. She needs to lie down about 12 to 14 hours per day to ruminate, rest, sleep and take the weight off her hooves, and also to enable good blood circulation in the udder for good milk production. The Nedap system alerts the farmer in good time of any changes in the cow's lying behaviour that indicate she is lying down less, so that negative consequences can be avoided. Alternatively, a cow may be lying down for the same number of hours per day but standing up less often. Standing up much less than the average 12 times per day is a sign that something may be wrong and that further investigation is needed. Then the negative consequences of standing up too little, such as eating too little, can be avoided.
The length of time a cow spends standing still has been included in the Standing and Lying Monitoring functionality because cows are generally busy all the time. Cows should only be standing still doing nothing for a relatively short time. If this time increases, the system will issue an alert so that the animal and her surroundings can be checked for possible causes of this unusual behaviour. Finally, Nedap Standing and Lying Monitoring monitors the length of time an animal spends walking and the number of steps she takes per day. Any changes in these can also be a sign of health problems. The farmer can avoid serious consequences by checking and treating the animal early on or adjusting his/her animal management.
Standing and Lying Monitoring comes combined with the reliable Heat Detection system in the Nedap Smarttag Leg. This Smarttag costs the same as the one in the existing Heat Detection system. Nedap Heat Detection with Standing and Lying Monitoring detects 24/7 and at great distances: up to 75 m around the antenna in the barn, or about 500-1,000 m – depending on local circumstances – with the Long Range antenna in the pasture. This gives the dairy farmer more control over the production results of every animal in his/her herd.
Nedap Heat Detection: complete range for custom solutions
Nedap offers a complete range of equipment for Heat Detection with integrated Health Monitoring. The Nedap Smarttag provides accurate Heat Detection with Standing and Lying Monitoring in the leg version or Eating Monitoring in the neck version. Both the Smarttag Neck and the Smarttag Leg can be optionally combined with identification technology for use in management applications (ISO). Data transfer takes place at great distances 24/7. No matter what the dairy farmer's needs are or what demands are made by the farm's automation, Nedap always offers the best technology for an effective solution.
Nedap. Vital Element for Growth
As the world's population and prosperity increase, milk and meat producers are seeing a rise in the demand for their products. At the same time, requirements for quality and food safety are becoming ever stricter and raw material, labour and energy costs are rising. To respond to these challenges, for the past 35 years Nedap has been supplying the perfect high-tech solutions to enable livestock producers to grow sustainably. Feeding, milking, separating, sorting and heat detection: barn automation based on electronic individual animal identification helps livestock farmers care for their animals individually and monitor their production and condition. This saves valuable time, creates peace and quiet in the barn and provides a clear overview. Costs go down and profits go up. And it enables farmers to produce in a much more animal-friendly way. Nedap. Vital element for growth.