Connected milk sensors now available for Herringbone sheds

MSD Animal Health has launched their comprehensive milk monitoring solution, under the SenseHub® Dairy brand for Herringbone sheds following successful trials on Fonterra’s Te Rapa dairy farm in the Waikato.

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SenseHub Dairy MilkPlus and Somatic Cell Count (SCC) in-line sensors will redefine herd management for Herringbone shed owners who make up 67 percent of all milking sheds in New Zealand.

Similar technology has been available for Rotary systems through MSD Animal Health’s Protrack® brand but correctly identifying each cow in a Herringbone shed has not been previously possible, says Pauline Calvert, MSD Animal Health Livestock Business Unit Manager, New Zealand. This is what an inline link looks like >

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“Cows can be quite cheeky in a Herringbone shed, often jostling for their preferred milking position after entering the platform, making it challenging to accurately match the correct cow to the correct bail and thus the correct milk sensor results. Our team has worked tirelessly to overcome these obstacles, maximising the accuracy of data matching and collation, and presenting it in easy-to-use, cloud-based software,”

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The Herringbone system uses SenseHub Dairy photoelectric sensors placed above a purpose-built platform entrance chute. If a cow changes position after they enter the chute, SenseHub Dairy software enables the milker to reorder or rematch the cow to the correct bail.

• SenseHub Dairy MilkPlus allows farmers to monitor yield, protein, fat, lactose, blood, and conductivity for each cow, and the SenseHub Dairy SCC in-line sensors automatically perform a Rapid Mastitis Test (RMT) providing results within two minutes of cupping.
• “SenseHub Dairy MilkPlus and SCC in-line sensors give farmers hard data for every milking, so they know their best and worst performers throughout the entire season for better breeding, feeding, and culling decisions. It also means they can make faster, more informed bulk milk protection, udder health, and dry-off decisions,” says Calvert.
• The system also uses a traffic light indicator based on the SCC level by showing green for no issues (low SCC), orange for may need attention, and red for an issue (very high SCC).
• Chloe Jones, Fonterra Regional Farm Operations Manager – Upper North Island, says the trial at Fonterra’s Te Rapa dairy farm helped them identify and improve mastitis treatment in the 180-cow herd and reduce their mastitis cases.