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Afimilk Articles

Poole’s Brothers Farm:A Journey from Tail Painting to Hi-Tech Precision with AfiCollar

For Isaac Poole, AfiCollars have transformed how he and his team work. With the AfiCollars giving them all the information they need to make breeding and medical decisions and Afi2Go Prime putting it at their fingertips, not only does a day on the farm look very different compared to two years ago, but they are operating more efficiently too. Running this large operation has been made much easier for Poole Brothers farms and can be for you, too.

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Farm Management In Your Pocket

Life on Charcroft Farm changed dramatically the day Tom Hiscock won the cow collars and started using them alongside Afi2Go Prime. Tom always has a handle on exactly what work is being done and who is doing it, and he can make changes on the fly in response to real-time situations without any undue stress.

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Damage control! How accurate and timely detection of subclinical ketosis reduces the impact of this widespread disease.

A dairy farm that can rapidly, accurately, and non-invasively detect all cases of subclinical ketosis (without the inconvenience and expense of carrying out repeated strip testing) will be a more profitable as well as more efficient farm. Sub-clinical ketosis detection through the AfiLab system is proven reliable, accurate, and fast and is revolutionizing the way that dairy farms across the world detect and manage this pervasive disease.

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Informed Management of Transition Cows Aids in Maximizing Production Potential

managing transition cows is critical to help your herd achieve its maximum potential and avoid significant production losses through the rest of their lactation. Afimilk provides accurate, reliable tools that can not only find cows that are not increasing milk production as expected, but can detect subclinical ketosis and other health issues, allowing for early intervention at all stages of lactation.

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The Crisis of Mastitis-How technology can help farmers tackle dairy farm’s most serious health issue.

Mastitis is infectious, often fast-spreading and has devastating impacts on your cow population and profits. Alongside any diagnostic tools used, keeping accurate and detailed records about the nature and cause of any mastitis outbreaks on your dairy farm will help you provide effective treatments in a timely manner. It will also help you understand how your farm compares to industry norms and decide whether you need to change your milking protocol or improve general hygiene.

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Beat the Heat: How to Detect and Manage Heat Stress in Cows

To keep your cows comfortable and optimally productive at all times, you need to monitor their conditions continuously. This is especially true in the summer months or in countries with warmer climates. However, with global warming raising its head, this can be relevant anywhere and at any time of year.

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herd management software

Animal Welfare & Afimilk

Animal welfare is a primary criterion of social sustainability. With sustainability being a pillar of our core values, Afimilk works together with farmers who provide the best welfare possible to their herds, supplementing them with tools and best practices for improving animal care.

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If Milk Could Talk! – Important Things You Can Learn By Using A Milk Meter

If you read the previous article in this series, you already know that a milk meter can be a valuable tool in your armory, giving you detailed data about each cow’s milk production to support better decision-making on the farm. Just using the solution at face value – to compare quantity and quality of milk to historical norms – is valuable in itself, but there is more you can deduce from Afimilk’s MPC milk meter when you understand how to interpret the data.

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Why Every 21st Century Dairy Farm Needs A Milk Meter

The Afimilk MPC used alongside Afifarm’s farm management solution provides an abundance of historic and current information about each cow. It is this level of detail that will help you take your management decisions into a higher league so you can truly maximize your productivity and profits.

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Leveraging Automation to Increase Milking Parlor Efficiency

The milking parlor is the heart of every dairy farm. A mismanaged parlor can negatively impact a farm’s critical areas of profitability, including an increase in cases of mastitis in cows, chronic teat problems and other health issues that can influence fertility, feed efficiency and welfare – ultimately ending in lost milk and lost revenue.

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Precision dairy farming: How technology can benefit dairy herd management

Increasing dairy herd size, shortage of available workers and rising labor costs has made it increasingly difficult for producers to provide specific attention to each individual animal. Due to these changes in the dynamics of herds size and production per animal, as well as the growing concerns surrounding animal welfare, the dairy industry has become one of the leading adopters of precision technology.

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Best Practices For Increased Milking Parlor Revenue

Data is the key to improving your farm’s efficiency and boosting your bottom line but to get the most of your data, you need to have the tools to analyze it. Using Afimilk’s MPC in conjunction with the milk efficiency module in Afifarm presents you with data that makes it easy for you to quickly glean practical information at a glance, with the option to delve deeper into the data if you wish.

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Unlocking the Hidden Value in Your Milk Parlor

Dairy farm so it makes sense to focus significant attention on the milk parlor when looking for ways to boost your farm’s profitability. By using milk monitoring tools, you can collect vast amounts of milking data and store it for later analysis. The best parlor solutions provide an accurate snapshot of what is going on day to day in the milking parlor down to the individual cow level, giving you the information you need to evaluate your milking protocols and plan for a more efficient future.

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Efficient Farm app with Afi2Go

Afi2Go: A Paperless Farm is an Efficient Farm

Is there anything your smartphone can’t do?
With Afi2Go Prime, your smartphone can add farm management to its repertoire!
Read our newest blog post and learn how this simple but powerful mobile app can turn your farm into a model of paperless efficiency

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milking parlor

Time to Automate Your Dairy Farm!

If you’re ready to automate your farm or you want to ramp up your automation, check out some of the Afimilk products mentioned in this article and explore how they can help you achieve your goals.

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Waste Not. Want Not!

The farm is home to 1800 dairy cattle, with 1200 Holstein cows calving annually. Robhoek is spread across 240 hectares of irrigated ryegrass pasture and plants 60 hectares of maize for silage annually. The solutions presented here enable the farm to save costs on food and supplements as well as ensure that each cow is fed a diet tailored to its nutritional needs.

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The “Weigh” to Higher Profit!

The story of a professional farmer who uses the AfiSort and Weigh system which identifies, weighs, and sorts the cows according to where they should go at each milking. Sort and Weigh helps him achieve important efficiency targets on the farm.

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TRACKING COW BEHAVIOR AS A GROUP

The Benefits of Tracking Cow Behavior as a Group

As a farmer, you may know every cow in your herd by sight. You may even have named them all and know each one’s individual quirks and habits. While there are tremendous benefits to monitoring each cow individually – especially when it comes to fertility – there are situations when group monitoring is equally as important and more efficient.

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It’s Getting Hot in Here: The Most Effective Way to Track Cows in Heat

They say that timing is everything. This is definitely true when it comes to inseminating cows – the timing must be perfect in order for the insemination to result in conception.
When conception rates are maximized, cows become pregnant at the optimal time to ensure that milk production remains at its optimum level, resulting in healthy cows and a healthy bottom line for the farm. Despite the critical importance of conception rates, only 35-45% of cows get pregnant on the first insemination.

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Afimilk Projects

Afimilk Projects has vast worldwide expertise in setting up dairy farming projects from large-scale operations to small farms.

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Activity monitors for heat detection

Activity monitors: More than just heat detection

To assure cows calve at optimal intervals and maintain milk production at peak levels of efficiency, it is necessary to constantly keep a close eye on the cows, which isn’t always an easy task. Automated heat detection systems are making this possible in today’s industry. However, most systems on the market, including AfiAct, provide the producer with more that just a heat detection tool.

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How to choose Cow Activity Monitor

Questions to Ask When Choosing a Cow Activity Monitor

Dairy producers have long understood the importance of visual cues in determining cows’ fertility and health status. Since round-the-clock observation can be impractical and labor-intensive, especially on larger operations, many dairies are now turning to technology for cow monitoring solutions.

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mastitis detection

Using conductivity for early mastitis detection

Early detection of mastitis is considered the best option to allow cows a quick recovery. Mastitis detection by seeing clinical signs, may prove challenging in large farms with high throughput or in cases of subclinical mastitis that doesn’t show clinical signs yet. New technologies automatically detect mastitis, before the cows show clinical signs.

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The unstoppable advance of heat detection systems

The unstoppable advance of heat detection systems

Dairy farmer Johannes Loubser was very enthusiastic about his heat detection system in HI`s reproduction series. South Africa is not alone. Around the world, thousands of farmers trust their “assistant”, who for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, tirelessly signals which cows are in heat. Three specialists and farmers from Europe, Israel and U.S. share their experiences.

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dairy farming news

Israeli design forms basis for modern South African farm

The most southern province of South Africa is called Western Cape. This region has the largest dairy operations in the country as well as the most registered Holsteins. Because the area is not suitable for the production of high-quality forage, they are very focussed on performing as well as possible in all aspects – here is their story.

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They share their best buys

They share their best buys

With today’s high production costs, spending your money wisely is more important than ever. Simply said, investments must pay for themselves. We asked Hoard’s Dairyman where they get the most bang for their bucks.

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Heat-stress effects on dairy cattle behavior

Heat-stress effects on dairy cattle behavior

Resting time is inversely correlated with milk production and directly correlated with gestation length. Based on readings of thousands of cows fitted with pedometers in multiple farms, Afimilk has measured 500 to 700 minutes per day as the normal resting time for lactating dairy cows.

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Effects of Cow Comfort on Milk Quality, Productivity and Behavior

Effects of Cow Comfort on Milk Quality, Productivity and Behavior

The behavior of dairy cows is dependent on the interaction between the cows and their physical environment. In the “big picture”, the physical factors of the facility (stall design, flooring type, feed bunk design, environmental quality) impose baseline limitations on how the cows will interact with the housing conditions. Within these limitations, the ability of cows to engage in natural behaviors is further dictated by management routines such as grouping strategy and stocking density

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Afiact - The Multifactorial Approach to Fertility Problems

The Multifactorial Approach to Fertility Problems

Feeding for efficient milk production leads in modern dairy practice. Efforts to maintain production and fertility at optimal levels under given market, husbandry and feeding conditions, often fail. Yet, financial
losses for an “open day” are estimated in various studies to be 2.5 to 5.0 US$.

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Extra Production – at What Cost

Extra Production – at What Cost?

Under the present prices, farmers use milk substitutes for young calves instead of whole milk, discarded milk (antibiotic or with high SCC) excluded. This amount should be reduced, and
the breach of the biological security should not be underestimated, especially in herds that adopted any disease eradication programs.

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Early Detection Of Clinical And Sub-Clinical Mastitis

Early Detection Of Clinical And Sub-Clinical Mastitis

Mastitis is the most costly disease affecting daily cattle. Losses occur from decreased milk production, treatment and labor costs, non deliverable milk, veterinary fees, reduced milk quality, reduced milk price, increased risk of subsequent mastitis, culling and death of the cow.

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Fertility Report in AfiFarm program and efficiency of Estrus detection

Fertility Report in AfiFarm

The fertility reports of the Dairy Records Processing Centers in some countries, including Israel, contain data about distribution of the length of the cows’ cycles in the herd. The percentage of “double cycles” (36-60 days) indicates above all the efficiency of heat detection.
The lower the percentage of double cycles, the greater the efficiency of heat detection. According to the HACHAKLAIT – the cooperative society for veterinary services – the goal of Israeli dairy cows’ reproductive management is less than 18 percent of double cycles.

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Detection and Prevention of Milking Routine Problems by Computerized Monitoring of Milking Irregularities

Detection and Prevention of Milking Routine Problems

A study was carried out to examine if computer monitoring of the dairy herd can help in the assessment of the milking routine on individual farms, to advise on possible shortcomings, and to monitor recommendations on improvements to the milking routine, particularly violations of “overriding” the ACR settings.

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Dairy Management - Feed graph

The practice of body condition scores of dairy cows in Israel

Body condition score (BCS) allows the cattle producers to assess the nutritional status and the changes in the energy balance of cows during various production stages. The importance of evaluation of BCS for effective dairy management is well known.
The uniform BCS system was developed in 1989 by A.J.Edmondson and simplified in 1994 by J. Ferguson at the University of Pennsylvania. The cows are typically scored on a 5-point scale from 1 indicating thin to 5 indicating obese. Recently, the dairy extension veterinarian of Illinois University R.L. Wallace described in detail in “Hoard’s Dairyman” of September 25, 2000, “What condition scoring can tell you”.

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Influence of milk yield and take-off settings

Influence of milk yield and take-off settings

The first aim of this study was to monitor parlour performance in high producing Israeli herds using the parameter proposed by Reid and Stewart (2007) for herds milked three times daily, 55 kg milk/stall/hour. Milk yield, somatic cell count and the culling rate were monitored correspondingly.
The second aim was to examine if by increasing manufacturers default take-off settings in Israel, there will be no detrimental effect on parlour performance and udder health (SCC).

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Automated cow monitoring system

Automated Monitoring of Dairy Cows’

Automatically monitored behavioral (feeding and locomotor) irregularities of Israeli Holstein cows were investigated in three dairies in relation to animals’ health status and stress conditions. Feeding behavior patterns were analyzed on the base of automatic on-line recording of feeding events. Indices of feeding behavior irregularities were proposed.
Long lasted feeding behavior irregularities were accompanied by poor health related parameters: higher milk Somatic Cells Count and conductivity, greater body condition loss toward first insemination, and increased cooling rate.

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Proper control brings positive returns (Stuart Mackenzie)

Proper control brings positive returns

“About three years ago I was in an aggressive expansion phase. For me to get a good quota, I had to get my cow numbers up quickly. When I got the chance to acquire an Ayrshire herd, I not only could up my milk production, but it also offered me the opportunity to differentiate a little bit in terms of the price I receive for my milk, Ayrshire milk being regarded as different from Holstein milk.”

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Put your cows on auto control

Put your cows on auto control

The system makes it possible to take care of each cow individually, even if it is part of a very large herd. As a matter of fact, the larger the herd, the sooner the system will be able to “pay for itself”. The Afimilk dairy management system is a product of SAE Afikim, a company that has specialized in computerized systems for the modern dairy farm for the past 30 years.

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Dairy Guidelines Raising Calves

Dairy Guidelines Raising Calves

The greatest effect on inheritance will come from the sire you select. Selecting bulls with high PTA’s for production and type offers the greatest opportunity for improvement in a herd

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Achieving high performance

Achieving high performance in dairy farms-Experience

Dairy farming has developed very fast in the last years in China. Many factors can influence the milk production of dairy cows, such as genetics, management, nutrition, improved technology, etc.
At SanYuan we managed to reach the highest milk production level in China in the last decade. The purpose of this article is to report our experience. Which were the main factors for this great achievement?

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