We are thrilled to be named Finalist in the prestigious 2024 Fieldays® Innovation Awards with our SenseHub® Dairy connected Milk Sensors for Herringbone sheds.

SenseHub Dairy Swing-over Herringbone Entrance ID automatically matches MilkPlus and SCC in-line sensor results to each cow, storing and displaying the data in SenseHub Dairy cloud-based software (along with SenseHub Dairy cow collar data), giving dairy farmer access to unparalleled insights in one easy to use ecosystem, allowing them to monitor, understand and act.

Whilst our connected milk sensors have been available for several years for Rotary sheds, we can now confidently offer them for Herringbones, which account for 69% of NZ milking sheds.

How does it work?

Unlike rotary sheds, where each cow walks into a bail with a reader one-by-one, the complication in a herringbone comes from natural cow behaviour – cows often jostle for their favourite milking position, even after they enter the platform. Thus, it has been previously very challenging to know who is in each bail.

SenseHub Dairy entrance chutes and gates control how the cows enter the platform, so they can be identified with photoelectric sensors above, as they walk one-by-one to the bail. When the photo sensors detect the correct number of cows have entered the platform, to fill each bail, the gate control kicks into action and closes the entrance chute.

If cows do happen to change position after they enter through the chute, our SenseHub Dairy software allows the milker to reorder or rematch the cow to the correct bail.

SenseHub Dairy swing-over switches are used to tell the software which side of the herringbone is currently being milked, to ensure correct matching of cow to bail number, and thus correct milk sensor results are matched to each cow.

What problem is it solving?

SenseHub Dairy swing-over herringbone entrance ID integrated with in-line milk sensors give the dairy farmers fast, frequent milk production and milk quality insights, every day for every cow, without disrupting the milking routine.

As milk volume and composition is an indicator of productivity, breeding potential, udder health, systemic health, feeding regime and let-go timing, it makes sense to monitor every cow’s milk, every day, throughout the entire lactation to enable better trend analysis of the herd and individual cows.

Making critical farm decisions based on little to no cow production data can be risky business. The more times you test, the more accurate the data and trends, the earlier farmers can detect issues.

SenseHub Dairy Milk Monitoring in-line sensors, connected via herringbone entrance ID, do all the hard work, giving cows their ‘voice’, helping farmers to easily identify who is thriving, hungry, or in need of attention. This will be a powerful tool as we know healthy animals are more productive and generate lower emissions.

What do the milk sensors measure and why?

SenseHub Dairy 6-in-1 MilkPlus sensors measure yield, fat %, protein %, lactose, blood, and conductivity, helping farmers:
• Identify their best to worst performers
• Optimise feed efficiency
• Improve breeding and culling decisions
• Increase production and profitability
• Earlier detection of cows that may need vet attention

SenseHub Dairy SCC sensors measure somatic cell count via a Rapid Mastitis Test (RMT), with results within 2 minutes of cupping (while cow still in the bail), helping farmers:
• Identify earlier cows with increasing and high SCC
• Further investigate potential udder health issues
• Enables rapid action, if required, while the cow is still in-bail
• Early intervention increases milk production, milk quality and cow comfort
• Protect their bulk milk SCC score, get more excellent milk quality benefits
• Reduce the need to strip the herd, faster milking, less skilled labour required
• Improve breeding, dry-off and culling decision making
• More selective Dry Cow Therapy decisions

SenseHub Dairy SCC Sensors can also be paired with optical warning lights (OWLs) which flash green (for low SCC) through to red (very high SCC) whilst the cow is still in the bail, further enabling the milker to take early action, if required, to protect bulk milk and look after the cow.

Want to know more, book your farm visit today.

These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease in animals. For the diagnosis, treatment, cure, or prevention of disease in animals, you should consult your veterinarian. The accuracy of the data collected and presented through this product is not intended to match that of medical devices or scientific measurement devices.

Monitoring Solutions – Branding Explanation

The brand names for our monitoring solution have been subject to changes since recording our videos and farmer stories.

MSD Animal Health, a division of the MSD group of companies under Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ., U.S.A. and a global provider of animal health pharmaceuticals and technologies, purchased the Allflex New Zealand business in 2019 (including certain SCR-branded animal monitoring technologies). At the time, Allflex animal monitoring solutions were known as Allflex collars and the relevant desktop-based software was HeatTime Pro (both of which you may hear about in this video). The dairy monitoring solutions are now branded SenseHub® Dairy – MSD Animal Health’s desktop-based software is now known as Dataflow II™ and cloud-based monitoring software is known as a SenseHub® Dairy solution. Allflex remains the brand name which represents our identification solutions.