As the herd manager at Double Eagle Dairy in Middleton, Mich., Drew Neyer relies on technology to help him decide where to focus his attention each day.
A change in rumination can put a cow on an employee’s list. A milking report can point him toward a stall with an equipment problem. A change in milk flow can give the team a reason to look closer at the milking routine.
The information does not make the decision for them, but it can help them decide where to spend their time.
The dairy milks about 3,500 cows on a 72-stall rotary and has added rumination collars, upgraded its milking system and built a feed center around how employees work. Each system gives the team another way to see what is happening and respond.
“By looking at one graph, I can get a really good idea of what happened overnight or throughout the course of multiple days,” Neyer says.
For Neyer, having more information is not the end goal. He wants the information to be useful enough that an employee can look at it and know what to do next.
More Information Between Milkings
The cow collars have changed how often the dairy receives information from its herd. Before the Afimilk AfiCollars were installed, leg bands provided activity information when cows were scanned in the parlor, roughly every eight hours. Now, antennas around the barns collect activity information every 15 minutes.
Neyer says the additional information has helped improve heat detection. The dairy was detecting about 72% to 73% of heats with the previous system, compared with a typical 76% to 78% with the collars. The system also tracks rumination and eating activity, giving employees another way to notice when an animal starts behaving differently.
The collars provide plenty of data, but Neyer and the team had to learn how to separate the useful signals from the noise. Understanding changes in rumination and eating activity took some trial and error as he figured out which patterns were worth a closer look.
“The learning curve for me was figuring out how to use the rumination and eating data to make better decisions,” Neyer says.
Not every change means a cow needs attention. Neyer works with his Afimilk dealer to fine-tune the health lists employees use, helping them focus on cows most likely to need a closer look.
“I try to have those lists dialed in, so for the most part, if we’re going to go look at a cow, we want to be able to make sure it’s worth going to check,” Neyer says.
Neyer looks at trends over several days rather than reacting to one unusual reading. A brief drop in rumination may pass, but a change that lasts longer can signal a cow needs attention. The data helps employees narrow down which cows to check, while their observations in the barn help determine what is going on.
The Data Follows Cows Off-Site
The collars also help the team monitor cows housed 15 minutes away from the main dairy. Far-off dry cows are kept at an off-site facility, where an antenna provides activity and rumination information back to the dairy.
Neyer says the information has helped the team identify inconsistencies in feeding schedules and feed push-ups at the facility. It gives him another way to see what is happening between visits, rather than relying on a conversation after something has already gone wrong.
“It’s nice to be able to have that information when you’re not physically there,” Neyer says.
The collars stay with the cows as they move between facilities, providing a consistent source of information. For Neyer, having the data available remotely is useful when he is deciding whether a cow needs treatment or should return to the main dairy.
The Parlor Provides Another Set of Eyes
When Neyer joined the dairy in 2024, the milking equipment was roughly 20 years old and required considerable maintenance. The farm upgraded its older equipment to a newer Afimilk system, giving Neyer access to more information about cow and parlor performance.
On a day-today basis, he reviews milking-session maps, performance reports, milking curves and malfunction reports. A session map can show stops and starts or equipment problems, while performance reports allow him to compare cows per hour and milk per stall. Milking curves provide another look at milk flow during the milking event.
“By looking at one graph, I can get a really good idea of what happened overnight or throughout the course of multiple days,” Neyer says.
The reports can help the team catch equipment problems before they cause a bigger interruption. If the system flags a takeoff or pulsator issue, employees can check the stall while the information is still fresh. Neyer sometimes reviews the reports on his phone before arriving at the dairy, so he already knows where he may need to start.
The information also gives him a way to compare sessions and crews.
If cows milked per hour changes, the team can look at what happened during the session. If milk-flow curves look different, they can examine cow preparation, milk letdown or equipment settings. Conductivity readings are included in Neyer’s health reports, where he looks for elevated readings across multiple milkings as a possible indication of mastitis.
Rather than treating one number as an answer, Neyer uses the reports as a starting point.
A Few Seconds Can Add Up
The upgraded milking system has also helped the dairy improve the pace of the rotary. Neyer points to Afimilk’s pre-milk stimulation function, which increases pulsation at the beginning of milking to provide additional stimulation. After the system was installed, he says milk production increased about 1 to 1.5 lbs. per cow, while average milking time fell about 12 to 18 seconds.
“Ultimately, we’re able to spin the rotary deck a little bit faster,” Neyer says.
On a 72-stall rotary, those seconds can add up over an entire milking. The faster milking time has allowed Double Eagle to milk roughly 200 to 300 more cows without adding another milking shift. Neyer is not looking at speed by itself, though. The system gives him information on milk flow, milking time and parlor performance, allowing the team to make adjustments and see how cows respond.
That feedback helps the team evaluate whether a change is working instead of relying solely on a gut feeling.
Technology Changed How Cows are Handled
The parlor upgrade also came with a change in the way the dairy handles cows. Much of the herd work previously happened in the pens. The dairy now has dual palpation rails and holding pens, allowing employees to bring cows into a dedicated area for shots, breeding and pen moves.
Neyer says 90% to 95% of the dairy’s cow work now happens in the rails.
“We went from doing all of our work in the pens with probably six to seven guys on the herdsman team. Now we’re down to doing the majority of our work in the rails,” Neyer says.
Two employees handle much of the work on the rails, while two others focus on hospital and fresh cows. Neyer estimates the changes also freed up two or three herdsmen to take on other responsibilities elsewhere on the dairy.
The Feed Center Keeps Employees Moving
The same focus on using technology to make everyday work more efficient extends to the feed center. The enclosed commodity mixing barn gives the team a dedicated space for handling ingredients and preparing feed, while the information they collect helps employees make adjustments based on what is actually going into the mixer and what the cows are receiving.
Built about a decade ago, the feed center helps reduce shrink and keeps the mixing process organized. The dairy makes roughly 18 to 22 loads each day across four milk-cow rations, two dry-cow rations and one heifer ration. Two employees handle the work, with one focused on mixing and delivering loads while the other keeps ingredients moving and the center supplied.
“We’re really able to just keep one guy focused on getting the cows fed,” Neyer says.
The dairy checks forage dry matter daily and sends samples to a laboratory each week, giving the feeding team current information when adjustments are needed. Instead of relying on what an ingredient was expected to look like, they can use the numbers to make decisions about what is actually going into the ration.
For Neyer, it is another example of technology being useful because it fits into the work employees are already doing. The information helps the team make adjustments, while the layout of the feed center allows employees to divide up the work and keep feed moving to the cows.
Finding the Numbers Worth Using
Adding technology has also meant learning where it fits and where it does not.
Neyer says the amount of information available through the collars and milking system can be a learning curve, especially when it comes to deciding which alerts deserve attention.
His approach has been to customize the information around the employees who use it. A report is useful if it helps someone decide which cow to check or where to look for a problem. A long list of alerts without a clear next step can become another task on an already busy day.
For farms considering a new system, Neyer recommends seeing how it works on another dairy before making a decision.
“Get out, see farms, see what it’s capable of,” Neyer says.
He suggests visiting farms where employees are already using the system and asking how the information fits into their daily routine. A demonstration can show what a system is capable of, but watching employees use it during a normal workday can show whether the information actually helps.
At Double Eagle, the technology has become part of ordinary decisions. Neyer can check a cow’s activity before she comes through the parlor, review a rumination trend from another facility, look at the previous night’s milking performance on his phone or investigate an equipment problem without waiting for someone to report it.
The technology does not replace the employee who walks out to find the cow or checks the stall. It helps the team know where to start.At Double Eagle Dairy, cow collars, parlor data and feed-center technology are giving employees better information to make faster, more informed decisions every day.
