Stephen Mast shares his experiences and ROI
When asked what his favorite CowManager monitoring system feature is, Stephen Mast emphatically says it’s the ability to know what to expect from his cows before he even arrives at the dairy in the morning, whether it’s a list of potential sick cows, fresh cows to keep an eye on, or cows to breed.
Mast, a third-generation owner of Calori-D Dairy, gives praise for the time and labor savings the monitoring system provides him and his team. Calori-D Dairy milks 1,300 cows twice a day in Denair, Calif. They first put in CowManager ear sensors in the milking herd in December 2022, and after seeing the early results, they added them to the breeding-age heifers a year later.
For Mast, CowManager has had a big impact on his herd, and he can’t imagine dairying without it. “We breed for healthy cows that produce a lot of milk,” says Mast. “We care for them the best we can, and CowManager has absolutely helped. I can’t imagine not having CowManager.”
Benefits of a monitoring system
What started as a search into robotic milkers led Mast to CowManager. “We liked the monitoring aspects of the robots and being able to get data on health and rumination,” says the California dairy producer. However, putting in robots just wasn’t a good fit at the time. “We realized we could have all the benefits of a cow monitoring system at a small fraction of the price of robotic milkers.”
After hearing negative comments about collar systems, Mast looked into CowManager and liked the idea of the ear tag right away. “The ear tags are really simple and easy to put in and take out. It takes a matter of seconds versus dealing with cumbersome collars. If a tag falls out, which they rarely do, we’ll most likely find it and it will still work. We even found one buried in the free stall pack that had been missing for months. It still worked.”
Fertility and Health Modules
Mast uses CowManager’s Fertility and Health modules, saying both provide a solid return on investment. “The health module finds sick cows; it identifies them sooner, allowing us to treat them sooner or make the decision to cull them,” says Mast. “Just finding one sick cow sooner gives us time to help her before she gets really sick or lame or even dies on the farm. That early detection pays for the entire subscription for the month. The module allows us to be proactive about treating cows. Sometimes just giving a cow a probiotic supplement takes care of her stomachache and helps her get back on track quicker which saves us money.”
In addition to the milking herd, CowManager has made a big difference in the fresh cow pen too. “I’m able to look at the list of fresh cows and know the status of each one,” states Mast. “I look at their activity and rumination time; how much they are eating. If a fresh cow isn’t eating enough, we’ll leave her in the hospital pen for another day and determine if she needs to be treated to get her to where she needs to be.”
Mast says another big benefit is not getting nearly as many calls in the middle of the night for a cow that has gone down and cannot get up. Before leaving the dairy for the evening, he’s able to identify cows that may be struggling with a postpartum disease and provide them with appropriate calcium supplements. That saves a lot of calls at midnight.
CowManager also helps with dry cows. Mast said just recently the system caught a dry cow that had come down with a nasty case of E. coli. Before CowManager, he admits that they might not have caught the hard quarter until it was too late. CowManager alerted them of the issue and probably saved the cow and her calf.
All the health benefits and early detection have led to the following: 20% less mastitis cases, 15% less lameness, 30% less postpartum diseases, and a 20% lower mortality rate in heifers 12 months or older. Mast figures the reductions add up to a yearly savings of $32,939. He broke down that total into the following savings by category:
• $6,529 - Drugs
• $2,866 - Veterinarian
• $9,483 - Lost milk
• $753 - Labor
• $1,909 - Discarded milk
• $1,345 - Mortality
• $6,815 - Days open
• $3,240 - Culling
Add those reductions in cost to milk quality and performance benefits and the system pays for itself. Performance benefits include an average 6-pound increase in milk production per cow, lower somatic cell count, and more fat-corrected milk. Mast has also seen a big boost in net merit index number. These differences represent about $668,000 in added revenue.
On the reproduction side, Mast said his goal with CowManager was to speed up the breeding process and decrease time that cows are locked up. Mast gave an example of how CowManager has helped: Let’s say you lock up 800 cows in preparation for the breeder, however the breeder gets to your operation a little late. Out of the 800 cows, he has to find the six cows he has to breed that day. All the cows remain in the headlocks while he searches. With CowManager, I can look at my list and know whether a pen has cows in it that need to be bred. If there aren’t any cows on the list, I can let the entire pen go. Those cows only need to be locked up for 20 minutes while we clean the stalls vs an hour waiting for the breeder to finish. Our lock-up time has gone way down. It means less standing time and less stress for the cows. They now get to go do what they need to do, which is eat and rest.
Another benefit, Mast says he no longer needs to go around tail chalking. Instead, CowManager puts together a list of cows in heat. “I know that CowManager finds the cows, especially the ones that wouldn’t have been caught with just conventional tail chalk. I don’t have to put as many cows on the OvSynch program. CowManager finds those cows, helps us get them bred and I can cut way down on the number of shots I have to give.”
Since putting in CowManager, Calori-D hasn’t had a single open cow when they palpated prior to drying off. The system helps the team find cows that lose their calf after being palpated pregnant. It shows the team that she has come back in heat even though she is no longer in the breeding pen. “Having that info about which cows are truly open is another huge bonus and adds up in major cost savings,” says Mast.
Based on fertility goals, the dairy is seeing an estimated $32,611 total annual return using CowManager. This includes a 50% reduction in labor needed for finding cows in heat, an 80% reduction in tail chalk, a 2% improvement in pregnancy rate (from 25% to 27%), and a big reduction in hormone intervention. He figures that the improved pregnancy rate adds up to more than $20,000 in savings per year alone.
Easy to use
Mast says his kids will grab is phone and say, “Hey Dad, this cow is sick.” CowManager makes it easy to use the system. “My kids know the color codes and will see red for sick and yellow for suspicious. They also will pick up on which cows are in heat,” adds Mast. “The data is all very straightforward and easy to navigate. It’s up to me to figure out what to do with all the data. This system gives me the cows that need attention, and then we have to take the next step.”
While Mast jumped on board quickly, he said it took his herdsman a little more time to trust the data. Mast would tell him about a cow that made the sick-cow list, and his herdsman would say “she looks OK.” After several rounds of diagnosing the cows on the list together, whether she was fighting E. coli or lameness or a simple belly ache, the herdsman now knows that if it’s showing red or yellow, there is something going on with that cow and she needs attention. “I have yet to have CowManager miss a cow that is sick,” says Mast. “If a cow is sick and needs attention, she is on that list. It’s like I have an extra, knowledgeable employee that is looking at all the cows at the same time. CowManager allows us to focus on where the needs are versus having to walk the entire pen and look for problems.”
Helps Mast stay one step ahead
Mast said he once told his dad when they first started farming together that he could lock up the cows and walk behind them and then in front of them and be able to identify the cows that needed attention. He felt comfortable in that role, however, he was seldomly able to accomplish that task because something else always needed his attention. Now with CowManager, Mast knows that the task is getting done. He also likes that he can go away on a vacation or attend an event and know that he’s able to check in on the cows while he’s gone. It gives him peace of mind and helps him stay one step ahead.
To learn more about CowManager and read more producer success stories, visit CowManager.com.
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