Cost is one of the main issues for both dairy and beef farmers. Covid-19 era has been so overwhelming that managing a farm has become more challenging than ever. In order to make a profitable breeding, it is necessary to minimize the operating expenses. There are many ways to cut costs. However, the following key points are vital for a rancher:
1. FEED AMOUNT
Feeding excessively causes fattening in cattle and certainly increases your costs. To prevent this, feeding programs should be arranged according to the needs of the animals. When these nutrition programs, called rations, are not prepared correctly various nutritional diseases can occur in cattle. To prevent such diseases and avoid losing money, farmers must be attentive to the preparation of rations. By this way, deficient or excessive feeding can be prevented. With MilkingCloud Herd Tracking Software, you can prepare rations according to the needs of your animals.
2. EFFICIENCY CHECK
The productivity levels of cattle should be checked regularly. Cattle with chronic diseases which do not respond to treatment, lameness, repeat breeders or low-yielding cows, can keep damaging the business as long as they are not culled, especially in the dairy farms. The yield of cows must cover the cost of feed consumption. Otherwise, these animals are nothing but a burden for the farm. With MilkingCloud Dairy&Beef Management Software, you can keep and manage all the data of your cattle. In this way, you can easily identify the animals with low productivity and cull them from the herd.
3. CONSISTENCY OF HERD
One of the biggest sources of income for both dairy and beef farms is calving. A cow should calve every 13 months to achieve the desired reproductive target. In order to track this, it is very important to know when it was inseminated, checked for pregnancy and calved. Reproductive data of your cows are automatically calculated and continuously updated with MilkingCloud Herd Tracking Software.So, both individual and herd-based reproductive success can be followed.
4. PREGNANCY RATE
In order to keep the pregnancy rates at the desired level, cows/heifers in estrus should be detected and inseminated at the right time. One of the most effective methods of detecting heat is observation, yet determining heat by observation is a very time-consuming process that should be done by experienced ranchers. For this, sensor-based devices that detect heat depending on the increase in activity have been developed. With M2Moo, you can detect all heat (including silent heat) and inseminate your cattles at the right time because timing is everything in a farm!
5. SURVIVAL OF CALVES
One of the main incidences that harms a farm is the loss of the calves. There are two primary periods for calf losses. One of them is pregnancy loss such as abortus or stillbirth that is caused by maternal stress, diseases etc. The other one occurs after calving. Distocia, poor colostrum intake, failure of passive transfer, poor conditions, dirty floor, unsanitized shelter, infectious diseases especially calf diarrhea can cause death. Every calf loss results in a serious economic setback to the farm. In order to prevent calf losses, both cows and calves should be vaccinated regularly and raised under the right care conditions. You can keep track of vaccination records with MilkingCloud. Also, it provides such an agenda that reminders and notifications are automatically setted for the upcoming tasks and operations.
