Life with SenseHub - Behaviour monitoring a 'no-brainer' for Mayo dairy farmer Dermot Reilly

Welcome to the MSD Animal Health Podcast. On this podcast, we interview people working across the agricultural industry to bring you the latest disease information insights to our technology solutions and discuss relevant industry topics. Welcome everyone to the MSD Animal Health Podcast. My name is Emma Gilson and I'm a Ruminant Product Manager with MSD Animal Health. We're here today on the dairy farm of Dermott Riley in County Mayo for our Life with Sense of Campaign. So Dermott, would you like to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your farm here? Hello, welcome. Thanks for calling out. Dermott Riley's been named as said. We farm whole-stained regions, autumn and spring cavern. We farm a block as 128 acres, trying to get grazen from February till mid-November, if weather allows. We also do some zero grazing on farm as well on the outblocks. We keep on our replacement hefers. We rear them ourselves and all beef calves are sold after two weeks, three weeks old. Very good. Dermott, and are you the third generation farmer here? I know we saw your dad not gonna buy it. Yeah, I think it's a third generation farmer here. I took over during the farm in 2017. Since then we've made improvements every year. So an on and on and since I was part of that improvement of making our life easier here on farm. In 2023 we were looking at options and looking at different options and Kevin and Kristi called out to us from Sense of and went through the whole setup and the benefits were and how we how we go about installing it and we went live in January 2024 and we haven't looked back since. It has been a game changer for the farm in fair even though more than my expectations I bought it for each purposes but on the health side all as well. It's excellent. Once you learn to trust the system it does everything another person could do on the farm. It's good as a person to you really and as I work our family self I have all the information live on the phone or laptop. You mentioned Kristi and Kevin came out and assessed your farm. What was involved in that in the whole installation process? Yeah, it went very smooth. I gave them a call and within a week or two they called out and assessed the farm and the block and advised X, Y, and Z where to do what to do and it's very simple process really put the order and we had the the collars within a few weeks and they were here the day we installed the first cows then and trained me how to put them on and showed me how to read the phone etc. And in fairness any issue I could reach out to them with no issue at all like in the go through any any doubts I had around and that sort of very simple reading and once you got confidence the system runs very easy and smooth. Great yeah yeah and you're using different technologies on the farm here and it's something that's yeah all using more and more of so. I'm a farm believer of the technology is out there if it makes the life easier and it can be done why not you know and as I said we made a lot of improvements over the years and you can't buy time and the most time we've saved in the last five years is phenomenon for family life for holidays for even getting people to milk for you people are willing to do because not here all the time. Yeah and you mentioned earlier and German pre-centred you were thinking of getting bulls yeah and what sense of this has eliminated that for you. Yeah there was a few elements like we and the farm here the way the breeding system is we probably would require four bulls four stock bulls and it's an expensive option now and it's also the health and safety of a bull especially when does people milk them for you it's just to have that ease in mind that there is no stock bull with the cows and it a better choice of AI straws as well and when you're using for breeding etc so it was an all brainer really when you sat down and done all the pros and cons to it. And just practically then during the breeding season here what are you doing day-to-day on-sense up and you look at the animals and heat and then look at your breeding window or how are you. Yeah every daily few times a day I check the app some cows will be ready for breeding some won't be ready for breeding and at the minute because of that I'm doing a manual draft on the drafting gate but obviously in springtime if you're serving all cows are combining and do an automatic draft but I'm checking the app maybe three four times a day go to bed tonight check and see if it's empty drafting the morning etc but it's very simple you can do it on the comfort of the coach at all. Yeah you mentioned there as well you got the symptom drafting gate obviously installs you talk a little bit about that the installation process of the gate and how that has streamlined things real here. Yeah it was always part of the plan about a drafting gate end when we started the upgrades here in 2018 2019 I just kept Kevin there a call and he came out and we were trucked through the options of where to put the gate and what sort of gate and where best to push it. We decided already the gate then I went ahead with it and the team came and installed in two days and showed me how the gate worked and those no issue and we have looked back since it meant life very easy for the cows and for the people. And you used that for drafting out for breeding and then yeah we used for drafting for breeding for any issues with cows if they need them up form or we're hoof pairing for dry off because we dry off all different times the year so we just draft what the cows and they're there when you're finished milking the cows in the air. Yeah let's stress on you and yeah well most importantly the animal as well let's stress and less information like they said we have people milk in here with a good team here so I don't have to contact them 24/7 they don't need to know what cows are drafting out but they're independent when I come out in the morning or whoever comes out in the morning they're there. And then from a health point of view obviously if sent on flags an issue you can draft that animal out as well and yes yes. And the following you can set up by for porch you want to reach to suit your farm best and the health ones as ones ones I have there so when I'm in check in AI the automatic is see is any animals with a health reason to check out or if you can set up a text message if you wish and for a certain levels of health warnings so there's a lot of different options to warn you at different if you're not on the farm at different levels to pull a cow or draft cow to check her to see what's wrong. You mentioned you originally got sent to me for breeding but it's the health so that you see massive benefits. Yeah it's surprised me really did and it's amazing it takes a while to trust the system obviously when you get a new system just to see what's happening but we got a few text messages last summer you know check ex-cow this cow and we didn't pull them out or check them and move to parallel they did have a spot of mass tightness so we're able to get in there with treatment and the cows performance didn't dip which is massive because it probably will be another three or four days before you'd see how bad the case was so it is very beneficial that way or if a cow is lying down to long with a sore foot it even tidied that you know she's not eaten enough so. She's our former she's not eaten her she's not ruminating so and that's great and your father as well can he have the app on his phone and yeah we're looking off if I'm aware myself my dad has the app in his phone and he can read the i.e. chart as well after this cow for aion so it's more than one user can use the app on the phone if you have someone work on full-time which they can have it on their phone it's up to the farmer how we want to use it different options. Yeah it's a flexibility there so from a labor point you vet you you mentioned earlier that you've tree small kids as well and you're working off farm yeah have a sense of help you there and just freeing up freeing up time away from your eyes. Yeah it's been massive and it's even been better than I anticipated to be honest with you as I said I have three young kids all under 11 and take a bit of time and it gives you several time before it since so by my people off late at night checking where the cows are in paddocks with see if good to see heads it's a you lose an hour or two here and there now you can go off we finish usually around half six seven o'clock in the evening you can actually shoot off that time do your family stuff or do whatever you wish to do road socializing and everything's picked up by since so it's good isn't it the person the farm really so it's great just to finish off as well as general what does life would sense of mean for you this is their life sentence campaign. Yeah life is freed me up big time as I said I have three young kids for going on hard lose this communion this is weddings and it just gives you that sense of freedom and you're not relying on people or information you're not missing heats or you're not missing health warnings and that's massive like if you miss one heat or repeat it six weeks instead of three and you know that you can't buy that time back so it has been a massive difference for lifestyle as well. If there was another farmer here thinking of installing a sense of what would you say to them. I'd say if you're thinking about it you must be really serious about getting it I say go ahead and just do it because it will change your your lifestyle and it will free you up from farm in 24/7 because since so we'll look at the farm 24/7 for you. So for that point of view it's been very good for us here. Thanks very much thanks for your time today. I'm Jwellen and the best I look at the rest of the carvings even. Thank you.