PJ O’Donoghue runs a grass based dairy farm in County Cork, South of Ireland. His 140 dairy cows go out to graze as many days as possible during the year, but there is adequate housing when weather is bad. Some of his land is mixed, but mostly it’s good grazing ground for summertime. The vast majority of his cows comes in for insemination in a time frame of three weeks. “Nedap CowControl gives me the tools to control and monitor those cows in that very very busy time” he explains, “The main advantage of Nedap CowControl for me, is that someone is there looking after the cows 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

“The main advantage of Nedap CowControl for me, is that someone is there looking after the cows 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

From tailpaint to automatic heat detection

Before using Nedap CowControl, PJ used to tailpaint his cows. This involved a lot of labor, once or twice a week. He needed to watch those tailpaints by constantly monitoring the cows. PJ: “Now, with Nedap CowControl it is there in front of me on the computer. Having used this system for a number of months, I know now that it is excellent in accuracy and I can trust in completely”. Additionally, veterinary care for the cow goes much quicker and targeted than he used to be able to do before, because he can check if a cow has been eating, ruminating and if a cow needs attention.

“Peace of mind is all that matters”

PJ finds the Health Monitoring of Nedap CowControl most beneficial. “in the mornings when I wake up, the first thing I do is check the cows on the PC at home. If there is an urgent attention, I walk out the door and check her straight away. As often is the case when there isn’t an urgent attention, I sit down and relax and have that extra cup of tea. Peace of mind is what it’s all about” PJ exemplifies. Whenever PJ has been away for a few hours, checking his herd via his phone or PC immediately brings back the peace of mind.

The ultimate goal PJ wanted to achieve using Nedap CowControl was to use the cows that he has as efficiently as possible, because he is at his stocking rate limit. He didn’t want to employ somebody, now Nedap CowControl does the work for him.