Lactanet Canada recently achieved an historic milestone by enrolling its 100,000th cow from robotic systems, on milk recording. With about 700,000 cows total on milk recording in the country, robotic herds have become an important and sizeable segment for Lactanet.
According to Richard Cantin, Lactanet’s Business Development Manager, “It was roughly 20 years ago that we did the first North American DHI sampling in a robotic system. It was new to us back then and the learning curve was very steep, but today DHI testing in robotic systems has become fairly routine.” He adds, “Over the last year, we’ve added 10 to 12 robotic herds to our services each month. The trend is strong and shows no sign of slowing down.”
Individual cows’ milk samples in robotic systems are collected with an automated sampling device. This aspect is very different and unique, but much of the rest of the DHI process is similar to any other herds.
Lactanet herd management data and services are a great complement to the on-farm data from the automated milking system. Their combination make a very powerful management tool. “For Lactanet, the challenge is to ensure we can both add to and complement the on-farm data, so dairy managers and their advisors have the best possible information available for making decisions” states Cantin.
Lactanet has lots to offer and can bring excellent value and payback to robotic herds through a wide variety of services:
- Lab services such as fat, protein, SCC, MUN, KetoLab, Johne’s, Leukosis, BVD, contagious mastitis and GestaLab pregnancy testing;
- Calculated information such as Milk Value, BCAs, lactation totals, lifetime production, rankings and benchmarking;
- The ability to participate in genetic evaluation and official breed programs.
Cantin concludes, “It’s hard to predict how popular and widely adopted robotic milking will become on Canadian farms, but no doubt it will continue to play a significant role in our industry. We’re pleased to count a large number of robotic farms as our customers and to be part of their herd management solution, today and into the future.”
Lactanet is an organization providing profitable dairy management and genetic solutions to dairy producers across Canada.
Release and photo provided by Lactanet.