August 16, 2024

 

Merck Animal Health launches SenseHub™ Dairy Youngstock to provide farmers with actionable insights

 

Merck Animal Health on August 9 announced the availability of SenseHub™ Dairy Youngstock for preweaned calves in individual hutches and group housing, the industry's first monitoring technology for dairy calves from birth through the first 12 months of life, for herds of all sizes.

 

SenseHub Dairy Youngstock makes it easier for dairy producers to detect and locate calves and heifers that need attention. Proprietary, science-based algorithms constantly monitor animal behaviors through the special SenseHub monitoring ear tag. The technology identifies animals that exhibit behaviors that fall outside their individual norms, indicating they may need attention.

 

The SenseHub monitoring ear tag incorporates a blinking LED light so producers and farmers can quickly and easily locate those animals and apply appropriate interventions.

 

Calves have a natural tendency to hide symptoms of disease. SenseHub Dairy Youngstock helps to overcome this instinctive behavior by identifying potential signs of illness, often before symptoms are apparent to producers or farmers.

 

"The health and well-being of calves and heifers is essential to establishing the long-term health and well-being of the entire herd," said Juan Pedro Campillo, global lead, SenseHub Dairy Youngstock. "With SenseHub Dairy Youngstock, dairy producers can now harness objective insights to find calves that may need extra care and then provide early intervention to keep them on a path toward becoming healthy and productive cows."

 

This technology also allows dairy farmers to alleviate the increasing labor shortages on farms and benefit from an increased "peace of mind" when managing their daily operations from their smartphones. With SenseHub Dairy Youngstock, dairy farmers can focus their valuable time and resources on the calves and heifers that need attention. In doing so, the new SenseHub Dairy Youngstock solution increases well-being conditions for the animals and allows for more sustainable herd health management of the farm. The efficiency associated with the technology allows producers and farmers to adjust the workflow on their operation and more effectively utilise their resources.

 

SenseHub Dairy Youngstock is compatible with management systems involving nipple-fed calves housed in individual hutches and group pens from birth to weaning, and post-weaning calves housed in group pens from three to 12 months of age. Monitoring tags are attached and begin generating actionable insights within 27 hours.

 

Additionally, the SenseHub Ecosystem now includes new capabilities aimed at allowing farms of all sizes to boost productivity by providing insights that help farmers make more informed decisions related to the health and performance of their animals and farm.

 

"Farmers are looking for ways to meet the increased demand for animal protein, yet farms globally are faced with a range of challenges, including milk price volatility, input costs, labor shortages, and environmental challenges," said Tiago Arantes, associate vice president and Global Livestock lead of Merck Animal Health. "With its recent enhancements, the SenseHub Ecosystem can support farms of all sizes in addressing these challenges through customisable and integrated tools that provide data to help make more informed choices."

 

A number of new capabilities have also been added to the broader SenseHub Ecosystem which include:

 

    - SenseHub Services: A new online resource for SenseHub users designed to empower customers with new self-service capabilities;

 

    - SenseHub Insights: An advanced herd management tool to allow farmers to monitor and track trends in their herd and farm management processes which is accessible via SenseHub Services;

 

    - New third-party connections, which will create a more unified technology experience for farmers. The first of these new connections is Predicta Guardian which helps farmers become aware of potential health issues in animals six to eight weeks before they emerge which allow farmers to take a proactive preventative approach.

 

Additionally, SenseHub Dairy now provides greater capacity to cater for larger dairies alongside an enhanced customer experience with new and improved system capabilities. Key additions include:

 

    - Scalability: Increased capacity from 5,000 to 15,000 animals means large dairies can now also utilise the benefits of the SenseHub Dairy Ecosystem;

 

    - Batch group entry: Report customisable events for individual and multiple animals or by preselected groups for a more seamless SenseHub Dairy experience;

 

    - Heat report masked by group a0ctivity: Enhanced functionality of SenseHub Dairy Behavior Monitoring means that a farm can focus its system on those animals that are truly in heat and block the abnormal group activity;

 

    - Third party LED task management: New capability enables SenseHub Dairy users to activate the LED functionality of the SenseHub Dairy Behavior Monitoring Ear Tag through third party software for a more seamless experience;

 

    - SenseHub Dairy Youngstock: Building on last summer's launch of the industry's first monitoring technology for dairy calves from birth through the first 12 months of life, SenseHub Dairy Youngstock now supports pre-weaned nipple fed calves in group housing as well as hutches, according to Merck.

 

The SenseHub family of brands from Merck Animal Health provides advanced monitoring technology to put dairy and beef producers in control of every aspect of their operations.

 

SenseHub Dairy delivers actionable insights for optimal dairy herd productivity and management. For feedlot, backgrounding and stocker operations, SenseHub Feedlot can help to detect potentially sick cattle earlier, more efficiently, and more accurately than traditional visual observation.

- MSD Animal Health