Ear Tags or Collars? This Farmer Has Used Both

Waipiri Holsteins has been an active farm since 1903. About three to four generations of David’s family has been running the business. “We’re extremely proud of that”, he says. The farm consists of about 300 hectares of productive land. All family members are very active on-farm and passionate about the business. David’s oldest son Alex runs the day-to-day stuff and gets the milk shipped out every day. The youngest son Dean’s focus is on the genetic selection and import and export of embryos.

David is grateful to run a large family dairy operation and doesn’t take their farm for granted. “We’re extremely fortunate. Owning a property like this without serious family backing is nigh-on-impossible these days”, he says. He says his sons are the future of Waipiri Holsteins. “One of the goals is creating a nice environment for the next generation. I suppose, like our forebears, you’re the caretaker of the land for your given working lifetime. You hand it on to the next and hope they are every bit as productive as you’ve been.”

Early Introduction to Cow Technology

In the early eighties David worked on an award-winning dairy farm in Scotland, where they used collar technology, which was quite rare for the time. For him, it marked the beginning of his love for innovation. “That’s where the interest grew”, he explains.

“There were always issues with the collars”, David says. “Everybody will tell you the same stories, the odd cow getting caught up or whatever, they get twisted, they rub. Then a cow loses a lot of weight and gets really, really clean around the neck and shoulder area, so they become little bit loose. And modern Holsteins flesh up very quickly once you dry them off, and then they become too tight.”

This also resulted in a lot of extra work for the staff, having to check and readjust collars all the time. David knew there had to be a better way. “I always thought that perhaps there was a better compact way of getting a stream of information to us.”

Choosing Ear Tags

When David was in Europe in 2008, he saw a cow monitoring ear tag for the first time, and everything clicked. “I thought it was right up my alley. It gave a really good information stream on cow health and coming on heat and that sort of thing. I started following it and it eventually led me to CowManager. It was just a judgement call that I thought that this was where it was going.”

It’s been over seven years since they put the first CowManager tag in, and David’s still excited about the results and day to day use of the system. “It’s a small tag and we very, very rarely ever lose one. The information stream we’ve been getting off it is tremendous. For me it’s been a win-win situation. We had 50% of the herd tagged to start with and now we’ve got 100%. And we’ll keep it that way.”

“I get so much from it”

Alex comments on how easy to use the ear sensors are. “When you go to cull a cow or sell a cow, you walk it in and you get the tag out. It’s a five second job, it’s super quick. And then you just de-link and you chuck it on the next one. It’s very easy.”

David responds, saying: “You get rid of one that’s run out of battery power. And then you get a new one. I’m happy with that deal. I do deals every week, and that’s one of the better ones I do. For me, there’s a lot of real winning arguments here. In fact, it’s not an argument, it’s very simple for me. I get so much from it.”

For Waipiri Holsteins, the use of tech has made a ton of difference. “If you’re presented with these opportunities, to use this technology, you’ve just got to be smart and use it. I’m not really smart, and yet I still can run with the system and the guys just run with it every single day”, David says.

He has never been keen on endorsing companies. In fact, it’s something he chose not to do in the past. But speaking about and recommending CowManager is different for him. “I just see this as something that makes farmers’ lives a lot easier.”