‘Once you have Nedap, you’ll never do without it’ says John Barron, who milks 230 cows in Co. Waterford.

John, who farms with his parents Tom and Catherine, installed Nedap technology for sensor-based cow monitoring and management solutions in 2022, based on the recommendation of farmers in their discussion group.

‘We had had a bad year in with stock bulls letting us down, and my father had a close call with one of them as well, so we decided it was time for them to go. We normally used AI for six weeks, and then cleaned up with two bulls for the last four or five weeks, but in 2022, we had problems with both of them and a lot of cows were left empty,’ explains John.

The Barrons installed the collars in advance of breeding in 2023.

‘We’ve had two good years since we installed it,’ continues John. ‘We’ve improved from about 60% conception to first service to 70% now, and that’s with using AI across the herd. Our empty rate is down to seven or eight per cent this year.’

John has also started using sexed semen since installing CowControl. They never had the confidence to use sexed semen before, but with the data from Nedap Now, they have increased from 10% sexed in 2023, to 20% sexed in 2024.

‘Nedap Now gives us the exact window that a cow should be served in to give her the best chance of holding to a sexed straw. We stuck with that this year and only gave cows a sexed straw if they were between 14-18 hours since the start of heat. It paid off; we had 65 or 70% of the cows that got sexed held to first service,’ says John.

John and Tom find the information from Nedap Now’s reports are a valuable management tool.

‘Before breeding, we identify the cows that are suitable for sexed semen. They must have had one or two good cycles with strong heats. Cows that have had a weaker heat get conventional semen or beef,’ explains John. ‘In the current climate we must be sure that we’re giving our investment in semen the best opportunity to hold. We can’t do that without the information we get from Nedap Now.’

The Barrons now have a replacement breeding period of just three weeks, which allows them to be more efficient with their purchase of AI straws. John just buys exactly what he needs for that period, and feels he isn’t wasting straws. Prior to installing Nedap’s technology, they ran a six week replacement breeding period.

‘Now, all our replacements are born within the first three weeks of calving and we can manage them more consistently, so we have stronger heifers when it comes to breeding them,’ remarks John.

Data from Nedap Now is used at dry off too. John generates a dry-off report once a week to show which cows are calved over 300 days, and which heifers are calved over 280 days. He can then type their numbers into their drafting gate app, and the cows are dried off easily.

‘I’d struggle to get out of bed now if I didn’t have Nedap and the autodrafting,’ laughs John. ‘We have an extra eye on the cows at all times, we’ve saved time, and we have less work during the breeding season, we’ve removed guess work with repeats, and we’re managing our breeding season more efficiently. It’s a massive improvement.’

To find out more about Nedap’s advanced cow monitoring solutions, contact our partners: https://nedap-livestockmanagement.com/distributors/