Groups Comfort Report

The Group Comfort report is only available to farms with the AfiAct configuration.

Animal comfort is crucial to maximizing yield. AfiFarm monitors animal behavior. It uses the average group results to determine standard group behavior. Behavior deviations on a group level indicate comfort issues caused by factors in the environment, and not health issues.

Identify Group Welfare Problems

The Group Comfort report provides information to assist in early identification of comfort issues in a group.

The report utilizes analyses of animal behavior (such as daily rest patterns and milk yield) to alert farmers to welfare issues such as overcrowding, old bedding, and other causes of deprivation that effect the group's comfort and rest time, and can impact, as a result, on its milk yield.

The report's Welfare Index provides a comfort score and diagnostic alerts to address possible welfare issues:

• High density in group – an overcrowding alert is issued if there is an increase in the number of cows in the group, leading to a reduction in average rest time, compared to previous weeks.

• Reduced quality of bedding – when bedding quality deteriorates, cows tend to lie down less, resulting in a gradual reduction of rest time. Unless there is an obvious overcrowding problem in the pen, a decline in rest time is a good indication of a bedding problem.

• Pen change discomfort – in farms where an intensive group change protocol is practiced, the typical restless behavior of cows in a new group and their possible effect on other cows in the group might cause a decline in rest during the days following the event, even if crowding density is adequate.

• Rest variation in Pen – when a defined percentage of cows in the group are exhibiting rest times that deviate from optimum rest times determined for that group, changes in group behavior may be observed that do not fall into the alerts three listed above.

Understand the report

This example shows a correlation between the recent increase in the number of animals added to the pen and a drop in the group's welfare index.

Data	Description
Grp	Displays the group the cow is currently listed in.
Animals in Pen	Displays the current number of animals sharing the same pen.
Average Animals in pen last week	Displays the average number of animals sharing the same pen as over the last 7 days.
New animals in pen	Displays the number of new animals in this group over the last 5 days.
Last Day Average Rest	Displays the average rest time for all animals in the group for the last completed day.
Last Week Average Rest	Displays the average rest time for animals in the group for the last completed week.
Rest Deviation (Group)	Displays the % deviation for the group's rest compared to its regular behavior.
Rest Decline Animals	The number of animals with a large decline in rest time.
Welfare Index	Displays a comfort score (100 = excellent comfort conditions). Penalty points are deducted for Rest Time and Rest per Bout time periods below/above the average group rest time. The Index is displayed in the following colors: Green: 80–100 Orange: 60–80 Red: <60
Comfort Alert	When required, a diagnostic alert.

The Bottom Pane displays a detailed report/graphic view of the group's comfort and yield over a set period (default = last 30 days).

The example shows a relationship between an increase in the number of cows in the last week, with a decrease in average rest times and yield.

• Green legend –group average daily rest times.

• Black legend – daily number of animals in pen.