“CowManager on our operation is almost like another full-time employee to me. From the herdsman standpoint, I can watch 900 cows in two different facilities plus calving pen and dry cows. I can watch those cows from the computer. I can check all the cows, check health, check repro, and do it very efficiently.”
In Northeast Iowa, Sam Schwartz oversees Rolinda Acres Dairy as its dedicated herdsman. The dairy is home to 900 cows. When they moved to the new facility they sought a cow monitoring system with more technology. The big push to go with CowManager was moving away from collars to ear sensors.
“Prior to CowManager we had an outdated system. It did a good job for us, but it was very cumbersome putting collars on the cows and heifers all the time. So we wanted to have something with more technology, making it more modernized for our setup that we built. The big pusher for us was moving away from collars to ear tags. I love working with the tags, they’re very easy to handle. Easy to work with on the cows. You’re not trying to fight the cow to put a collar on. It saves a lot of time”, Sam says.
The biggest benefit for the dairy is the Health Module. Being able to check a cow’s rumination, the ability to pick up on sick cows quicker than the eye can see and even quicker that you would see in a milk yield difference. Sam describes CowManager as a full-time employee. Because of CowManager he is able to watch 900 cows in two different facilities by himself.
Sam says the system obviously costs something, but it saves a lot too.
“I’m not saying it’s cheap, but man, it works. It makes you money, saves you death loss and saves you sick cows. It’s just been huge for us, it’s a game changer. I would definitely recommend it to anybody else.”
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