The Moos Room™

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Brad: Welcome to The Moos Room, and I am once again without Joe or Emily. Hopefully, this doesn't become a staple on the podcast. I'm sure nobody wants to just listen to me rant about stuff, but I decided to bring back another guest today. I think it's the person that's been on the podcast the most. It is who? My former graduate student, Glenda Pereira.
Glenda: Hi, Brad. Thanks for having me on again.
Brad: It's always nice to have Glenda on. She's working in extension in Maine, doing lots of nice stuff with all kinds of projects going on in Maine, keeping you busy. What we wanted to talk about today really is Glenda is also working in precision technology. Everybody always gives Brad a hard time about using sensors and sensors for everything, and we've had lots of different episodes on sensors, but why not have another one? For those in the scientific world, Glenda and myself, and Kirsten Sharpe just had a review published in one of our scientific journals. It was Precision Technologies for Grazing Systems.
[unintelligible 00:01:32] known it gives a wide range of, you name it, from wearable sensors to autonomous vehicles to virtual fencing to figuring out pasture biomass. Maybe we'll put it in the show notes if somebody really wants to read a bunch of scientific review about precision technologies for grazing farms, but it is cool. We had a nice review about all of the sensors that we've done here. Many of you know Glenda has, during her graduate work, worked on a lot of sensors here at our research station, so I thought we'd have her on. She's been working on some technologies in Maine with some farmers, and I thought I'd give her a chance to tell us what she's doing.
Glenda: Thanks, Brad. You are right, I have lots of fun things going on here in Maine and working with the Maine Dairy Industry. In my transition from graduate school into extension, I started off with a project that involved precision dairy technologies because it allowed that flexibility with starting a new project as a new assistant professor in faculty here at the University of Maine. It gave me some of that familiarity, and then I would also be better able to support the farmers that I was working with on that project because I already had some familiarity with precision dairy technologies.
Brad: Are these technologies popular in Maine? People think, "Maine? Really? They have a dairy industry?" They do. There's quite a few farms, over a couple hundred dairy farms, I think, left in Maine, a lot of grazing, so they're probably not really familiar with working with technologies. There's a lot of grazing herds in here in the Midwest, and there's a lot of conventional herds that don't use a lot of technology too. I would guess in Maine, not so much either.
Glenda: That's a good question to start us off. There are some farms that do use activity monitors, precision dairy technologies, and wearables. There are some farms that are using robotic milking systems. We have two robots operating currently in Maine, and then we will have some robots coming online here at the end of the year and then next year, 2024. There is some exploration in the precision dairy world here in Maine but not to the extent that I would say I have seen some other states.
There is an issue too if you don't have the tech support in a certain area. It can be challenging to really have a pocket where you have a lot of technology or farms that are using technologies if you don't have that support system to-- once tags go down or once the system goes down, how do you troubleshoot some of those issues? That's a piece of it as well.
Brad: I know you had an idea and it probably stems from a lot of precision technology used here in Minnesota, but what was your idea and what did you want to do to help with those farmers in Maine?
Glenda: It does totally have to do with my previous background in working with you, Brad, at the University of Minnesota. There was an opportunity for me to apply to some grant funding through our Dairy Business Innovation Center. There's four across the country, and we have one here in the pocket of the Northeast. This funding does come and is tied to the farm bill, but there was an opportunity to do an extension project with a group of five farmers. It's a cohort. They work together along the timeline of the project. I had an idea that I had familiarity with precision dairy technologies, and I had familiarity with the technology that would best be implemented.
Along some of what you had mentioned about in Maine, not every farm is big enough to have a computer in their barn. Like we traditionally see, not every farm has a software management system like PCDART or DairyComp. There were some challenges that I had to work with, but I had the opportunity and I said, "I'm not going to let it go away." I said, "Why don't I apply for this grant funding and ask to purchase five systems for the five farms that I'm going to be working with and provide that technical assistance piece to those farmers along the project timeline?"
I thought it was going to be a long shot because a lot of grants are restrictive in what you can purchase. However, the grant was funded, and I got the ability to pick a technology to use with five farms here in Maine. I chose to use and select the CowManager technology because of two reasons. One of the reasons, I have familiarity with the data and using it, and then it really allows for us to just plug and play. It's a USB, you can plug it into anything. A lot of my farms don't have a computer in their barn. It's a computer that's in their house. It's a laptop that they use as their also personal computer.
I needed to have this flexibility, and that's why I chose this technology. However, I want to mention that I don't endorse CowManager, and so there are so many technologies available on the market. However, like I mentioned, I had a goal and I had to meet those specific objectives of the farms that I was working with, and so to not narrow the pool of farmers that I could be working with, I chose this technology.
Brad: I think that's good because there's a lot of technologies that you could have used. I know in the early stages we talked about a lot of technologies that you could certainly use and CowManager seemed to be the one that rose to the top there and you were familiar with that working here. Actually, Glenda validated CowManager on a grazing system-- Was it in 2016? Wow, that's a long time ago.
Glenda: Yes, as my first project
Brad: Well known all over the world for validating the CowManager system on a grazing herd here in Morris. It's well received that you did that. What information are you going to provide to these farmers? You put it on these farms. What was the reception from those farmers about this technology? Were they apprehensive, were they a little leery about it, or were they all in ready to figure this out?
Glenda: I'm still relatively new in Maine and getting to know people. I approached some farmers that I had some familiarity with and I knew that they would be like, "All right, Glenda is coming on the farm, she's going to help me, et cetera." The pool of farmers that I picked was quite different. I casted a wide net. I have people who are organic producers and are grazing, I have farmers that would be considered larger and confined, and I have even a farm that's an owner processor, so they don't even ship to a processing company. They do everything in-house. There was a variety of farmers that I worked with.
In addition to that, I have multi-generational farms. I have first-generation farmers, which is really exciting to be able to work with those farmers, and then I have farmers that are co-owners of the farm, even though they're not the original family that's on the farm. In addition to that, there's a large range in the ages of the farmers that are participating in the program, which was something that I didn't want to take away from them because I think even though us millennials and us younger farmers tend to adapt and implement technology so quickly because we're glued to our phone, everything is on Instagram, Facebook, and we're really used to being able to work with anything that's technological, the farmers that were older, they really adapted to it nicely.
However, they were hesitant and they were not as quick to say, "I'm going to pick up my phone in the morning and check what's going on with my cows." Whereas the younger farmers were like, "As I check Instagram and I check Facebook or whatever, I'm already checking the CowManager app to see what my cows are doing. It was a really easy adoption, but at the same time, I was that technical assistance, and then anything that they had trouble with, I really was able to be just a phone call away, a text away, a drive to their farm away. That was a piece of it too, in making sure that they were comfortable as we were implementing this system.
Brad: Yes, I think that's a good thing to note. We've seen that here at our research center too as you get some are apprehensive about using it right away because it's just something different, they're used to looking at the cows, and now you're, "Can you believe what the app says on your phone about what's happening in these cows?" Then maybe the younger generation says, "Oh yes, that's just one thing I'm going to check today and it works, and [unintelligible 00:10:28] breed your cows or go figure out who needs to be looked at for any health challenges."
You've had these on your farms for a few months, right, just a few months. What's their reception? Are some like, "Oh, I don't really like it anymore," or are they-- want to go more? I know your project wasn't able to maybe purchase the number of tags for all of these farms, so you did a portion of their herd. Any news about the future for these farms in technology?
Glenda: Yes, you're right, I was only able to purchase 30 tags per farm. Each farm, independent of their herd size got 30 tags. We were very strategic in what animals got those tags based on the goal of the project. I want to start off with that because, for some farms, they were like, "I really could use something to help me increase my estrus detection rate. Right now, it's a visual observation when they come into the parlor or when we're milking and I don't have that 24-hour visual observation for estrus."
Some farms were like, "I'm using this technology that has activity, but I really want to understand how rumination, eating time, and these other behaviors really help me in understanding the performance of my cows as they transition." Most of the farms are really enjoying the data that they're getting. They're really enjoying the fact that they can rely on the system for this cow to be bred at these hours because it's really specific. You have a time window once you get this data. Then one farm isn't as impressed with it because they're small enough that they're able to really work with their cows on an individual basis.
However, their cows are going to pasture here soon once we get the grazing season started. Then they said that there's obviously a potential opportunity as they head out to pasture that they won't have that flexibility and always being able to see them. There's all over the spectrum the content with the system. I will add that once we installed the systems, we did have group meetings with all of the farms, so they were able to share what's going on with their system, with their cows. One farmer said, "Hey, it's telling me that this cow's doing this. I look at her, she's fine. What do I do? What do you think?"
I said, "From my experience, it's time to make a plan for what you're going to do for that cow because there can be some hiccups where the system says something's going on and it's not true, but more likely than not, and especially if it's a transition cow, she just calved in, she's fresh, it's likely that there's something underlying that's going on." Then this farmer was like, "All right." Then all the other farmers got to hear that. Then the second meeting we had, we had an update, "What happened to that cow?" Sure enough, the cow was ketotic and then there was a treatment put in place.
All the other farmers were like, "All right, we can trust this." Everybody's a little bit more on board. Having that farmer-shared experience I think really adds to the project because we always talk about how farmers learn from other farmers, and I think that's a key piece of this, that they're all sharing their own experiences. In addition to that, I just recently followed up with that farmer that had that one ketotic cow, and now their fresh cow management has changed. Their processes, now, we're not going to check any of the cows, we're only going to check the cows that come on that heat alert.
This is obviously for the cows that only have the tags because it's limited. Those cows that are, we were strategic, we put it on fresh pre-calving cows to be fresh so that we could capture that transition period. They have implemented a protocol where the system tells them something's wrong, they go and keto strip them, they work with their vet to treat however they've come to their protocol for treatment. They've said that they've done this for three cows in addition to that fourth cow that they mentioned, and now, instead of that cow dropping in milk, which is the response that they were seeing before, the cow drops in milk, let's go treat her, they're capturing that way earlier.
There's earlier detection, and that cow bounces back in production that milking in the afternoon. She'll drop in milk in the morning, but because the day previous, they've already had that cow treated, there's no drop in milk to the extent that there was before because they're waiting for that drop in milk response to come to then be able to treat the cow. They're really confident in that protocol and management decision. That came along with the project.
Brad: That's a wonderful story. That's one thing that for us as educators we like to see, that it's actually helped farmers out and actually made an impact on their farm where they're able to change some management decisions based on the sensors and now they're catching those cows. If they were apprehensive in the beginning, maybe they're putting a little more trust in the system, it's like, "Oh yes, well, we saved that one cow and can save some labor and not have cows crash and burn sometimes where you're able to figure that out." I think that's a very important aspect of your project, was able to get that piece in for those farmers.
I also like that the farmers get to share it with each other. Sometimes you or me or others that talk about all these sensors and all the company people talking about, "Oh, their sensors are great and everything's going," but it really comes down to farmers sharing their experiences with others. That's where the true learning comes from in being able to tell, "Oh, well, yes, I'm using it this way, or I'm using it this way." Some people use it for fertility, some people are using it for rumination and eating and feeding behavior, and I think every farm is different in those aspects.
I think your idea to share ideas of the farms with each other is great and being able to actually see what those farms are doing and hear it from each other instead of you just telling them. Now they can really get a sense of, "Oh yes, maybe this is okay to do."
Glenda: Yes, they have their cohort group where they're able to share that. In addition to that, they're really excited to go on our farm tours, because as farmers, they don't get to get out as much all the time. They're always tied up between chore time. With this project, they get to go to each other's farms and learn about their farm and learn about how they're using the CowManager system. We have our first in-person meeting next month. Everybody's really excited to get out onto these farms and really be able to work in person with each other.
I do think that as to the community piece of the dairy farming industry that we already have established, but sometimes we forget to, "Hey, yes, I should make an effort to go out to that meeting that's going on," et cetera. In addition to that, I have all different production systems and age groups in my cohort groups, so I think that'll add to the shared experience between all of them. It's not all one age group, there's going to be a lot of collaboration between all of the farms that are participating in this project.
Brad: It's the grassroots level that will help achieve some goals with sensors and maybe increase their use. I think you and me both have seen this work, and I don't know if I could ever go back to the old way of doing things. Before, it was just a lot of labor. We catch cows much easier and earlier with things. I was a little apprehensive when we started using these sensors 10 years ago as well, and you probably were too.
There's still a lot of sensors out there that I'm apprehensive about still to this day, and it's like, "Well, will it work?" Then once you get into them, you can see what they're actually doing. It sounds like you are having a meeting. You got a lot of data crunching to do. Are you going to present anything to these farms, or what are you going to share with them?
Glenda: I'm not presenting anything to these farms, but I am presenting at one of our regional meetings on this project. I do have to do a lot of data crunching because we just finished up a project with one of the farms, and even though the system has only been in place for two months, this farm is ready. They've had their stuff fine-tuned, they're ready to start a project, so I will wrap that up and present that at my regional meeting next month.
Just to give you a little bit of background about that project, one of their focuses was how can we better improve the feed bank management for their high group, their high-producing group. Obviously, those are the moneymakers in your herd, your high-producing early lactation cows. We decided to shorten the time between their feedings. Then this is not an experimental project, it's an applied project, so there was a period where there was no change.
They had been doing things as a business as usual, but then we implemented a different feeding time, and now we're going to look at what the feeding time and the inconsistency and feeding time because that's a variable in that too. In the perfect world, the cows are getting fed at exactly the same time every day. Cows need that consistency.
Brad: You're right.
Glenda: We're going to see what the inconsistency in the feeding time did to their eating behavior, and in addition to that, what the response in milk production was to then be able to say, "We've tightened the time between their feeding times, now, do we even want to go further and really try to nail down every single day, the one time in the morning or the one time in the afternoon. We're going to religiously make sure that we're there as punctual as we can be because it has this significant impact."
I wanted to mention that a big piece of this project is that I'm really looking to utilize the data that we're collecting with this technology to be able to better improve or implement a different management practice than the farm was already doing. For example, can we really shorten that time management, that feed time between feedings, and then in a further project, we're going to be looking at stocking density because they know that they have a stocking density problem.
We're going to look at those behaviors when we're overstocked versus when we're understocked. Really, the key is looking at rumination and then active or not active time of that animal in response to if they have more space versus not as much space.
Brad: Well, I think that's interesting. That shows that these sensors are able to do a lot of other things to help with management decisions. Even just what you're talking about feeding time, what time of day are animals fed after milking or whenever they are fed can cause a lot of other behaviors, changes, and increased milk production or decrease. I think that's a good thing to use is with these sensor systems, it's really changing management to increase herd productivity and profitability really. That's a good thing. That's a good thing.
Glenda: Yes, that was really the goal of the project was we do get the benefit that there's the health monitoring, the estrus detection monitoring, but really, for my piece of the project is playing with that data, utilizing that data to make that one improvement on their farm. Another farm, we're going to be looking at lying time. We're going to be looking at increasing lying time, the availability that cows have to lie down versus not, and then seeing what the response in obviously milk production and then the behaviors, rumination specifically, eating time, inactive and not active time, because lying time is so important.
If cows don't have the ability to lie down, for your mature lactating cows, for at least 10 to 12 hours a day, that can really hinder their performance. We're excited to get started with that project and digging into that data.
Brad: Yes, that sounds very interesting. We'll certainly have to have you back on again when Brad and Glenda talk sensors again and find out what happened to those farms that have been utilizing these systems and what management changes they've made in their herd. Anything else for the greater good today?
Glenda: No, I just thank you for the opportunity for having me on. I want to mention again that this episode did feature working with one specific technology, but there's a lot of technologies that I've worked with. The technologies that are in the market are all obviously worldly available, and they do a lot of things. They each have their own objectives, but for our project, this technology fit the best for all of the farms that I was working with, and so it was a technology that we chose to work with.
Even though this might seem like CowManager is beneficial and we love working with it, it's certainly not the only technology that you and I have worked with, Brad. I just wanted to mention that as well.
Brad: I agree. We've worked with a lot of technologies, and if people are listening and if you want to talk about more technologies that are being discussed, actually, our University of Minnesota Extension Dairy Team is hosting a Precision Dairy Conference in June 20th and 21st of this year in Bloomington, Minnesota, where we'll all talk about different technologies that can help from animal welfare to improved labor, environmental sustainability, data, you name it.
There's a lot of information there. You can go to precisiondairy.org to register for that conference and see what the agenda is and the speakers. It's really all about sensors on cows and how precision technology can help benefit dairy farms. With that, I thank you, Glenda, for joining me today, and we'll definitely have you on again, of course, to talk some sensors again. Thank you.
Glenda: Thanks, Brad.
Brad: With that, if you have any scathing rebuttals or want to know more about sensors, or if you want us to talk about any other sensors, I'm sure we can, feel free to let us know. You can email us at themoosroom, that's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M@umn.edu. If you have any other comments or questions, just call Joe or Emily. I'm sure they'll help you. With that, we'll see you next time. Bye.
Glenda: Bye.
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