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Comfortable cows are generally healthier, more productive and less stressed – and it’s no secret that cow comfort directly influences milk production and your bottom line. A recent study shows that for every hour of lying time beyond 10 hours, cows can produce up to 3.5 more pounds of milk per day.[i]
But you can’t ask every cow if she’s getting enough rest.
“Cows can’t say how they feel, so you need to rely on behavior and data to understand their needs,” says Rosa DePriest, dairy support team lead at VAS. “By listening to what your cows tell you through data, you can create a more comfortable environment for your herd to thrive.
Optimizing for cow comfort begins with asking the right questions and leveraging your herd’s data to implement a solution. Here are four questions to ask yourself to evaluate, monitor and improve your herd’s comfort:
1. How much time do your cows spend standing versus lying down?
Your cows’ standing and lying patterns are key indicators of their comfort.
Extended standing times can indicate stall design issues, overcrowding or stall and bedding management issues – such as not cleaning pens and beds often enough or using adequate bedding.
If you notice longer standing times, start by evaluating your stalls. Look at stall structure, bedding and stocking density to identify where the problems are.
Longer standing times can also indicate health problems like lameness, which impacts more than cows’ mobility. Globally, lameness results in a $6 billion loss in milk production, fertility and increased culling.[ii]
“Lameness is a low-hanging fruit in cow comfort management,” says DePriest. “Using herd management software, you can track hoof health events, flag problem cows, build hoof care lists, spot deviations in activity levels and take preventive measures before they become a bigger issue.”
2. Are you optimizing your stocking density?
Overcrowding can disrupt your cows’ ability to rest, eat and ruminate. By using herd management software like DairyComp you can customize your reports to provide specific insights into your pens. With these reports, you can track and analyze pen size and milk production to identify the optimal stocking density for your cows and barns.
“I worked with a dairy that wanted to scale back their herd size to meet their reduced production quota,” says DePriest. “Instead of seeing a drop in milk production, they unexpectedly saw an increase. After some investigation, we realized their pens had been overstocked. By removing cows, the herd was closer to an optimal stocking density. This increased milk production per cow per day.”
You can find the right balance between cow comfort and utilizing your barn space by tracking milk production and other important herd data before and after management changes. Granting your consultants permission to review and access this data via the cloud also helps ensure well-informed management decisions.
3. How efficient are you with your cows’ time?
The less time cows spend confined and handled by people, the better. Unnecessary confinement time can cause stress for cows, negatively impacting milk production.
“For a cow to be productive and profitable, we want to give her time to do her thing – eat, rest and produce milk,” says DePriest. “Many tools are available to help minimize disruption to cow routines and increase efficiency. Options range from small things like mobile herd management solutions and RFID wand readers to larger tools like automatic sort gates and parlor systems.”
Going mobile allows for rapid cowside data entry and quick access to your herd’s information, offering new opportunities to boost efficiency by combining tasks or approaching them differently. With mobile management solutions, you can quickly see which cows need vaccinations and treatments, reduce confinment time and keep them moving through the pen. Pairing mobile herd management with an RFID reader and tags can also make herd checks and worklists easier, faster and more accurate.
Automatic sort gates and parlor systems like ParlorBoss help minimize disruption by only sorting out cows that require attention.
Ziegler Dairy Farm saves hours of pen-walking by leveraging ParlorBoss to identify cows and efficiently complete tasks directly on the rotary. The 1,070-cow Wisconsin dairy improved compliance by nearly 8% and their pregnancy rate by 9% with the system.
“It shaved off so much time,” says Steve Ziegler. “We increased milk production and have fewer hoof issues because of the reduced confinement time.”
4. How much does weather impact your herd?
Heat stress can have a negative ripple effect on reproduction, milk production and herd health.
“With herd management software, you can track milk yield, somatic cell count and reproduction metrics like conception rates and pregnancy rates and correlate data with weather patterns,” says DePriest. “This historical analysis can help you focus on when and how your cows are most impacted by heat and plan and prepare better to mitigate the weather’s impact.”
Many heat stress mitigation strategies are easy to implement. For instance, double-check your summer management plan to ensure simple tasks are completed, such as cleaning and maintaining fans, ensuring adequate water availability, and confirming misters and curtains work.
In addition to keeping your cows cool, other management practices can help reduce heat's greater impact. For example, DePriest worked with a farm that noticed a spike in mastitis health events over multiple summers. In addition to their cooling management practices, they evaluated teat dip products and switched to sand bedding to further manage their mastitis cases.
Implement a change and monitor the impact
First, focus on improving cow comfort for your most significant challenges. Whether it’s heat abatement, lameness or optimizing pen layout, use your data to prioritize and track the effectiveness of changes you implement.
“The key is to tackle one change at a time and focus on incremental changes,” says DePriest. “If you make too many management changes at once, it is much harder to identify what change made the impact.”
Ask yourself, ‘Was this change effective?’ and continue to track before-and-after data to optimize your herd management further.
Connect with a VAS representative or visit VAS.com to explore how data-driven insights can elevate cow comfort and drive long-term herd success.
VAS is the global market leader in connected farm management systems. For more than 40 years, VAS has been the operating system of choice for the most innovative dairies. VAS' software and information solutions help collect and connect a farm's data – from herd management to feed performance, tracking and more. These insights are a source of truth, empowering producers and their trusted advisors to make profit-driven and sustainable management decisions. At the forefront of thought leadership within the dairy industry, VAS is trusted by the producers we serve and the greater dairy community.
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