Censortec CowControl: Better heat detection, better repro results
Sean and Joanne Cleere farm with their family in Templetuohy, Co. Tipperary. Milking 260 cows and calving the herd over 10 weeks, they felt heat detection wasn’t up to scratch on the farm.
‘I couldn’t work without CowControl,’ says Sean. ‘It’s an essential part of how we work on the farm. Our lives are easier because of it.’
‘Because we calve over 10 weeks, we were going straight from calving to breeding without a break. We used tail paint, and we’d watch for cows bulling at milking time, but we knew we were missing cows,’ explains Sean. ‘As cow numbers increased, heat detection was taking more and more time and labour, and we weren’t getting the results we needed.’
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‘As well, before we installed CowControl,’ adds Joanne, ‘we were using stock bulls after the first three weeks of breeding. We wanted to get away from using bulls from a safety point of view, and because we wanted to be able to breed better stock. We wouldn’t have been confident using AI across the whole herd without a heat detection system, so that’s what made us start to research activity monitors.’
‘The bulls were a disaster,’ continues Sean, ‘we had at least four, and there was nearly always one lame, or hurt. There was a big cost associated with them.’
‘Our AI man had seen CowControl in action on another farm and was really impressed with it,’ says Joanne. ‘We saw how well it was working on a few other farms and decided to take the plunge.’
Sean and Joanne installed CowControl in 2020, and quickly got to grips with the system. After four breeding seasons with the system, they’re happy with their decision.
‘Once we got used to it, we embraced it fully, and now we rely on it 100% for heat detection,’ comments Sean. ‘It’s so simple to use we don’t realise we have it anymore. We look at the app in the morning, and any cows on heat are there, or any cows with health issues. It’s just simple.’
