The Bawdens are a ‘sports mad’ family and have adapted their dairy operation so that it can accommodate their sporting commitments without compromising their business.
“Installing CowManager has allowed us to be on the go with the kids five nights a week and on weekends, when we do a lot of travelling,” Cameron said.
Their two daughters, now 10 and 12, play basketball in Gippsland, Melbourne and in regional Victoria. It’s not unusual for them to play or train every night of the week and on weekends. Ainsley, the elder of the two, is now in the state development program and Cameron also coaches, having been a talented junior basketballer.
They have been on their current dairy farm at Labertouche in Victoria’s west Gippsland region for six years. They are on a lease-purchase arrangement, milking 250 cows at peak. Both Cameron and Tracey are from dairying families from Tasmania and Victoria.
“We have one full-time and one part-time employee,” Cameron said.
“The full-timer milks in the evenings and that allows us to go to basketball with the kids.
“We both enjoy being with the kids and watching them play.”
Choosing CowManager’s ear sensor system was a ‘no-brainer’ for Cameron, who had been through the full round of visual heat detection systems, putting stickers on cows in a herringbone, which posed OHS risks for staff, and fixed time systems, which he said don’t really add up with a small herd.
“I liked the ease of the ear tags but one of the clinchers for choosing CowManager was that Paul (Quinlan from World Wide Sires) got the quote through to us in four hours,” he said.
That meant they were able to apply immediately for a government digital technology grant which paid for about 50 per cent of the installation cost of the CowManager system.
“The grants go out the door pretty fast, so Paul’s quick response made it possible for us to get an application in and receive the grant.”
Paul and Cameron installed the ear tags and set up the antennas around the farm. The system integrates easily with their management system, Easy-Dairy. One of the benefits of the integration between CowManager and Easy-Dairy is that there is only one set of data to be input and this is updated once a day.
“CowManager links in very easily for small herds with little automation,” Cameron said.
The Bawdens use CowManager mainly for heat detection and cow health alerts.
“I learnt very early on to believe the health alerts,” Cameron said.
“When a cow went down, CowManager sent an alert, and I did not act quickly enough.
“But now, if we’re away, it’s all on the iPhone. If we get a health alert on a cow, we can advise the worker which cow to check. He knows the cows.
“If we suspect a health problem ourselves, we can check the cow’s health and its rumination on CowManager to confirm.”
Heat detection has become more precise using CowManager and, once again, the system can be used to meet their lifestyle choice, as well as improving in-calf rates and making savings on semen.
“One of the advantages with CowManager is that it gives us optimum timing for joining. This is critical when we’re using sexed semen,” Cameron said.
“In other situations, I can decide whether to use conventional or sexed if I know I’m going to be at basketball. That way we can work the joining around our lifestyle and optimise our chance of a pregnancy.”
Since installing CowManager, Cameron says they have halved their semen use.
“In almost four years we’ve never had to call on back-up or support,” Cameron said.
“It’s good to know it’s there, but we haven’t had to use it.”
Although he has not ‘crunched the numbers’ on CowManager Cameron knows they are getting cows in calf quicker. This is because he can go to the phone, check the cow and mate her at the optimum time, ensuring more successful pregnancies.
“If anything, I would say we are probably not using CowManager to its full potential, but we are definitely getting good value for the dairy and for ourselves,” he said.
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