Researchers aim to gather individual cow methane emissions data
Plus, robotic milking farms: Where are they now?
A New Zealand group has developed miniature methane measurement chambers. The company aims to use them to evaluate the individual methane emissions of cattle in the country’s grazing systems to gather data and inform future breeding decisions. Individual cow methane emissions data could help breed for cows that naturally produce fewer emissions, the researchers say.
Read more about the company here. See the system in action below.
Robotic milking farms: Where are they now?
A reader suggested that we follow up on farms that we’ve previously featured in Progressive Dairy magazine. This article interviews a few farmers we wrote about who have installed milking robots and what they think of them now.
Do they still like their choice to go robotic?
Afimilk (Sponsor)
On his 1,400-cow dairy, Jeff Potter has boosted conception rates and saved money on labor and meds with Afimilk technology. Explore how you can, too.
Just say no
Janette Barnard’s Prime Future is a good newsletter to follow. Five percent of those subscribed to The Cow Tech Report also follow her publication. Recently she wrote about online marketplaces and why they haven’t taken off in agriculture. She highlighted one notable exception from the dairy industry: Ever.Ag.
Find out why they may have succeeded where others have failed.
Get to know the latest up-and-comer in the beef industry
Argentine startup Cattler claims to be gaining ground in the U.S. The company is using a similar model for the beef industry to the one that milc used to get a foothold in the dairy industry. They have initially offered feed program monitoring software but are now expanding their technology into beef animal health.
Read more about how the company is evolving here.
Supreme International (Sponsor)
Supreme International is the first company in North America to
manufacture the vertical feed processor and is recognized as the best
TMR processor in the world. Learn more here.
Cattle blockchain startup now offers digital payments
A cattle blockchain provider is making headlines with a new way to pay for cattle transactions. CattleProof launched as an immutable ledger for identifying and tracking cattle movements through the beef supply chain. They recently announced the ability to do business digitally through an electronic payment system that allows cattle owners to buy and sell cattle via credit and debit cards and ACH payments. Read more about the technology here.
New muzzle ID startup emerges
A new Australian company has emerged with technology to use photos of cow muzzles as unique identifiers. The company aims to help producers prevent theft or to relocate cows that may be separated from their herd across the continent’s wide-open ranges. Read more about the company here.
U.S. dairy cow numbers leveling out
University of Illinois researchers shared an interesting insight into how milk production is changing among ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ dairy herds. The researchers hint that dairy cow numbers may be plateauing in the U.S. and that future milk production gains will come from not just more cows, but more milk per cow. Technology, they suggest, will continue playing a role in increasing milk production, if cow numbers do remain relatively flat in the future.
Dairy profit projections from ZISK
Projected profitability for the next 12 months for two dairy herd sizes
DECREASED
in recent profit projections from ZISK.
ZISK is a profit-projection smartphone app that tracks individual dairy farm profitability based on current CME board prices. Projections for a 1,000-cow dairy producing an average of 80 pounds of milk per cow and a 2,500-cow dairy producing an average of 85 pounds of milk per cow are provided.
12-month dairy farm profit projections (as of Nov. 3, 2023):
1,000-cow dairy = $335,000 (DOWN about $51,900 in the last two weeks)
2,500-cow dairy = $1.564 million (DOWN about $133,000 in the last two weeks)