U.S. Holstein association aims to transform 50-cow university herd with technology
Plus, check out this new offering from The Cow Tech Report
Holstein Association USA recently announced a collaboration to transform a 50-cow U.S. university herd into a top-tier genetics herd using the latest cow technologies. The effort aims to push the university herd, and overall breed advancement, forward. The herd at Western Kentucky University, which has been doing dairy cow research for more than half a century, is the selected herd for this new experiment, which is being dubbed “the SmartHolstein Lab.”
According to a release announcing the news, the lab has been established as an easy-to-access demonstration and development farm to explore new technologies designed to collect novel phenotypic traits, including wearable or indwelling sensors and milk-based biomarkers. Emphasis will be placed on practical use of data for on-farm decision making. The herd will also be a nucleus herd for genetic selection strategies and collection of novel phenotypic information.
The long-term goal, according to the association, is to develop a 100% A2, polled herd of cows in the top 20% of the breed for TPI with additional emphasis on health, reproduction, and fitness traits.
The lab says that “many” industry partners have already donated technologies. Companies that are interested in working with the new lab can contact wkudairy@smartholstein.com with questions or express interest in collaborating.
Learn more about this cow tech project here.
Research fellowships awarded to create a web-based interface for dairy data, address cybersecurity on dairy farms
The Dairy Innovation Hub at the University of Wisconsin – Platteville recently announced two research fellowships focused on cow-centric technology.
The first project will focus on understanding how farmers currently use their data to make decisions and analyze how a decision support framework could influence daily operations to increase herd health and revenue. Researchers will attempt to create a light and efficient web-based platform for a dairy’s data based on discussion with farmers and their consultants. The goal of the new platform’s development will focus on ease of use, getting data to a place where it is more easily stored, analyzed, and actionable in order to make farm management decisions.
Another project at the university aims to evaluate the variety of cybersecurity threats and attacks that could target herd-level, day-to-day dairy farm operations. Researchers will outline the security posture of the university’s dairy farm at UW-Platteville by performing a comprehensive risk assessment and recommend measures to mitigate identified risks. These findings will then be generalized to investigate common cybersecurity issues facing the dairy sector.
Check out the other tech-related research fellowships the university recently announced here.
NEW! The Cow Tech Report launches premium access, paid version
This week The Cow Tech Report launched its weekly premium access, paid newsletter. Readers can expect the weekly subscription-only posts to showcase leaders in the cow tech industry, highlight up-and-coming cow tech businesses and provide thought-leadership from veteran editor Walt Cooley. The subscriber-only content is available for an introductory offer of $9.99 per month. Subscribe now and join the premier tribe supporting cow technologies!
The first premium post includes a Q&A with Ray Nebel, who recently retired after several decades working with activity monitors and reproduction management. Nebel discusses how activity monitoring has changed and where he sees the technology going in the future.
Read where he thinks improvements in activity monitoring can be made.
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Profit projections from ZISK
Projected profitability for two dairy herd sizes have DECLINED SIGNIFICANTLY in the last two week in 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 July 23, 2021):
1,000-cow dairy = $249,620 (DOWN about $151,850 since the middle of July)
2,500-cow dairy = $935,575 (DOWN about $395,000 since the middle of July)