Reduce the potential of calf illness reoccurrences with SenseHub Dairy Youngstock.
Lumar Dairy Farms owner Louie Borba kept running into the same challenge. He couldn’t get his calf management program into a place he was satisfied. His reoccurrences of illness were costing him time, money and resources, and his culling numbers were uncomfortably high.
“I knew something needed to change,” Borba said. “And I’ve always been open to new technologies, new ways of thinking.”
When a Merck Animal Health rep suggested using Lumar Dairy Farms as a test site for the new SenseHub® Dairy Youngstock monitoring technology, he jumped at the opportunity.
Results came quickly.
“After a few months using the Youngstock tags, we looked at the data, and a couple things stood out,” Borba said. “Our re-treatments and reoccurs both went way down.”
A first-of-its-kind solution, SenseHub Dairy Youngstock empowers producers to grow strong replacements by monitoring calf behavior 24/7. Producers can install the monitoring ear tags at birth and start getting behavioral reports after just 27 hours.
If calves are off feed, aren’t drinking or moving, or are behaving differently, the tags report on it, allowing employees to detect animals that need attention before clinical signs of disease become visible. After installing SenseHub Dairy Youngstock monitoring, Borba saw calves recover quicker and stop getting sick over and over again.
“Youngstock is a great tool for early detection and for raising healthier calves,” Borba said. “There’s going to be a little bit of ROI on medications because it’s one dose instead of maybe three to four doses. But the biggest return is just a healthier calf. That’s their biggest return on investment — calves that live and calves that are healthier.”
It’s also made a huge difference with his calf management team. Lumar Dairy Farms typically raises around 300 calves at a time. Walking that many calves each day took time, resources and experienced employees that knew what to look for. Too often things were missed with a task of that size.
With SenseHub Dairy Youngstock, Borba’s team receives a report each morning of which calves need attention. By narrowing the focus, sick calves get the dedicated attention they need, and employees can devote their time to the most crucial tasks on the dairy.
“It just helps us follow our protocols,” Borba said. “With all the data we have, it’s way more efficient. Instead of walking 300 calves, we look at the 30 or so that need our attention.
“You still need a good team, but this takes a good team to the next level.”
Reach out to a Merck Animal Health rep today and discuss what calf monitoring could do for your operation.