As India advances towards ‘Precision Dairy Farming’, maximizing individual animal potential is paramount to managing dairy farms. Its perceived benefits include enhanced efficiency, productivity, improved product quality and a rise in profitability.  However, this can remain a far-fetched dream, if exclusively relied on farmer’s experience and judgment alone. Though a farmer’s efficacy as regards to his cattle cannot be doubted in the least, it certainly can be quite strenuous for him to maintain the record of each of his cattle. No matter how hard he tries, human perception has its limitations and manual data entry will always be prone to flaws. Automatic data recording not only reduces the tediousness but also maximizes the product efficiency and accuracy, and in turn the profitability.

Prompt’s Farm 365 dairy farm management app has the potential to make a drastic difference to dairy management.

Salient Features:

Data Recording
Keeping a record of relevant information regarding the cattle is indispensable for a dairy farm to thrive.  Hence, considering the hardships and hurdles that the farmer encounters in keeping a manual record of each of his animal’s health, Prompt’s Farm365 dairy farm management app eases it immensely by providing accurate and reliable data. It covers all the required parameters needed for farm management: vaccination, heat period, AI, PD, calving, feeding, lactation record, etc. The seamless user interface helps the farmers with recording data of the life-cycle of events of the cattle. It records historical data which helps to monitor milk productivity and efficiency of the cattle.

This digitally advanced offering has a web portal synced to the application for advanced data analysis. Moreover, the farmer need not get perturbed by the lack of stable internet connectivity, for the application works offline as well as online. It conveniently syncs with the central server once the internet is available. The digitalisation eliminates errors and inaccuracy which are more likely when done manually. Furthermore, the data recording of each animal improves the breed, prevents in-breeding, promotes data-driven animal trading and monitors the key performance Indicators of cattle.

Activity Monitoring Device (BovSmart)
The reproductive efficiency of an animal cannot be achieved in the absence of a regulated breeding cycle. The activity monitoring device gives timely alerts and access to the veterinarians; this enables the farmers to take a timely decision for the insemination of the animal, in selecting medication well in advance thereby reducing medication costs, overall sickness events in a herd and mortality rate. It also helps in animal trading. The genetic quality of the herd can be improved upon through accurate forward AI, and consequently, increase milk productivity. Additionally, it maintains records of lactation, vaccination and AI. It also facilitates questions and answers with the Veterinarians.

These features of Farm 365 certainly go a long way to maximize animal potential by early detection of disease and minimizing the use of medication through preventive health measures. This technology enables the producer to collect information and data. Real-time data used for monitoring animals facilitates decision-making. The economic implications of this digitization would certainly lure the beneficiaries.

‘Precision dairy farming’ may be in its infancy in India, but it unquestionably untethers tremendous opportunities for improvements in individual animal and herd management on dairy farms. As Endres, a professor in the department of animal science at the University of Minnesota, said. “…Therefore, data integration and analysis coupled with decision-making tools will be very key to the success of the dairy industry in the future.”