SenseHub Dairy technology delivers family-time boost for sharemilkers

Horowhenua sharemilkers, Maegan and Terry Legg, say adding SenseHub Dairy collars to their herd and installing an Intelligate automatic drafting system has transformed their farming lifestyle. Words Tony Leggett.

In In Parntership

Maegan, Jackson and Terry Legg checking cows in the lead up to calving on their Horowhenua property.

Maegan and Terry Legg farm 5km north of the township of Shannon, milking a herd of 310 predominantly Holstein Friesian cows at peak each spring on a 128ha (effective) pasture platform.

A full-time worker assists with milkings and general farm work, but getting regular time off, particularly for Terry who handles all the day-to-day farming operations, has been an issue since they took on the sharemilking role in 2019.

Maegan is the primary carer of their three young children (Conrad, 12, Jackson, 10 and Tegan, 3) and handles the calf rearing, but she is also the current chair of the national committee of the Dairy Industry Awards. “Our biggest challenge before putting collars on our herd was getting time off the farm between calving and the end of mating,” Maegan says.

“We used to take a little holiday in early July but with calving starting mid-July, Terry was pretty much committed to being here on the farm until early January.”

After exploring several different wearable options, the couple decided to go with SenseHub Dairy because the system is proven and it was cost effective for their farm operation and herd.

“This year, with the collars on our cows, we were able to take breaks during mating because Terry didn’t need to be here to select the cows for insemination. It’s been game changing for us as a family,” Maegan says.

“The cows that are on heat are automatically drafted and waiting in the pen for the technician to arrive,” Terry says. “When we added up all the costs associated with selecting cows on heat with tail-paint and ‘scratchies’, and no lease costs for bulls to back up our AI programme, the extra cost of collars for the herd was actually quite small.

“Our calculations didn’t include the time required to do all that pre-mating tail painting or any allowance for the pressure associated with monitoring heats.”

They also do a weekly draft of their cows as calving approaches so they can monitor their springers more closely and manage their feed intakes. “It’s another example of the system saving us lots of time to spend on other things,” Terry says.

Not having bulls on the farm is another major benefit, they say. Terry says it was initially challenging to rely solely on the collars to signal when a cow is on heat and ready for insemination. He recalls one instance where he noticed two cows were being ridden by others in the yard but they were not automatically drafted after milking for insemination. “Those cows were drafted the next morning and when I checked they were in the optimal band for mating then. If I was drafting those two cows manually, I would have put them up for sure on the first morning and then tail painted them that evening, so they would have missed that optimal time for mating.

“There’s a lot at stake at mating time because if it doesn’t go well it puts your whole next season under pressure. But, after one season, I wouldn’t go back to tail painting and scratchies,” Terry says.

Over the next few seasons, they are hoping for small improvements in their herd’s current 6-week in-calf rate of 74% and empty rate of about 12%.

Monitoring health alerts via the SenseHub Dairy mobile app means they can deal with problems earlier and often more cost effectively than before.

From the moment they made the call to go for SenseHub Dairy collars, the installation and training was excellent. The team from SenseHub Dairy assisted with putting the collars on their cows and their trainer helped them with setting up a computer and phone app to view the data collected and prepare a range of useful reports.

There were no set up costs for the system and the Intelligate automatic drafting system was installed at the exit of their shed and operational within a day.

Putting collars on their herd of 310 cows took about two hours. Groups of 10 cows at a time were pushed up the ‘AB’ race and the collars were fitted without a head bail being required.

Their advice to other dairy herd owners is take the plunge into wearables and consider SenseHub Dairy collars in any list of options.

Benefits from SenseHub Dairy collars and Intelligate