Dairymaster is delighted to announce the latest product to its growing portfolio, “DraftNow”, which is a standalone drafting system. It includes a new app which has extra functionality and lots of benefits. It is a system that allows you to easily sort your cows remotely if necessary. It can be installed on farms with or without Dairymaster’s auto identification system and is suitable with other makes of parlours that want a reliable drafting system.
Herd sizes have significantly grown in recent years and there is a huge shortage of labour, meaning automation can make farm work much easier and safer.
The standalone cow sorting system is unrivalled in terms of performance and build quality. It is available in a choice of 2-way and 3-way drafting which may be combined when more segregation options are required.
DraftNow is a “live” system allowing for instant information exchange, once a change is made on the app, it is immediately updated on the system.
All information related to drafting cows can be viewed on the app. The DraftNow intuitive dashboard allows for many functions such as;
Easy to navigate and select cows for drafting
Permanent and scheduled drafting for example, cows who are lame, insemination etc.
Automatically draft cows with no tags or unknown tags
Select by group for drafting for example, dry off
Gives a history of cows drafted
Interactive grid to re-order and filter cows, groups etc.
The DraftNow App is a support platform to the programme. It allows the user to draft cows remotely, without having to be in the milking parlour. It also allows for lots of other functions such as adding or editing cow data, creating a new cow profile, edit tag numbers, assign cows to groups etc. All information is safely stored and connected to the Cloud giving you peace of mind that cow details cannot be lost. The details are automatically synced when the connection is re-established.
Dairymaster’s MooMonitor+ health and fertility monitoring system is extremely accurate at detecting heats for cows that are housed or on grass. Knowing when to breed these cows to optimise conception rates is invaluable to the farmer enabling them to get more cow’s pregnant sooner. A scientific trial conducted by Kansas State University showed the importance of the correct timing of AI. MooMonitor is proven to be more accurate at perfecting the timing of AI, leading to improved conception rates. This saves time and money during the breeding season. Research has also proven that over 75% of heats occur between 8pm to 6am when the farmer is not on site to monitor animals.
DraftNow is designed to work in conjunction with MooMonitor+ to automatically draft cows based on the number of hours in heat. These cows will be drafted into a separate pen after milking for the AI technician.
The DraftNow system proved to be an invaluable addition to all test farms where it has been trialled. In addition to sorting cows, other benefits such as cow and farmer safety, less stress and more control means jobs can be done quicker and safer. For example, hoof paring, dosing, AI etc.
Access to data and farm updates can be made in app. It is also translated across multiple languages such as English, French, Dutch, German, Russian and Chinese.
Installation is easy and the programme is very user-friendly. Dairymaster’s smart technology will automatically prompt the farmer when a software update is due, similar to a smartphone. This is done at the touch of a button and is seamlessly updated to the latest version, future proofing your investment.
DraftNow can make farms a much safer place as unnecessary animal handling will be brought to a minimum, decreasing the risk of animal related incidences for the farmer.