What does the Transition Rumination and Feeding graph show?
This graph showing the rumination and feeding times for your animals during calving transition time when animals move from late pregnancy to early lactation. There are three graphs:
Rumination and feeding for your whole herd.
Rumination and feeding for 2 year old animals.
Rumination and feeding for 3 year old animals.
Each graph will look like this:
Your farm data shown as lines
The lines show data for animals on your farm.
Colour key:
The navy blue line shows the median rumination time (in minutes) for your herd. The number of animals is displayed within the graph. e.g. the blue line shows that 226 of your animals were ruminating for about 420 minutes a day 10 days before calving.
The green line shows the median feeding time (minutes) for your herd.
The y axis shows the median number of minutes for both rumination and feeding.
The x axis shows the number of days in milk for animals, starting 10 days before calving (-10) to 20 days after calving.
Regional data shown as solid colours
The coloured background shows the benchmark derived from other Datamars Active Tag customers in your region. Use this information for context.
Colour key:
Gold - Top 20% for rumination
Silver - Next 20% for rumination i.e. 60-80%
Bronze - Next 20% for rumination i.e. 40-60%
Light Grey - Next 20% for rumination i.e. 20-40%
Dark Grey - Bottom 20% for rumination
Interpreting the graph
An animal's rumination will normally drop on the day of calving, then recover. A good transition is when most animals have recovered within two days of calving. This can be achieved by maximising feed intake to reduce the negative energy balance which all animals experience.
💡 If the green line (showing feeding time) is above the blue line (showing rumination time) this can indicate underfeeding.
On the graph above:
In the five days prior to calving, animals on this farm have low rumination times (navy blue line) and feeding times (green line), compared to the benchmark (shaded).
Things improved at calving time (day 0) with farm figures better than the benchmark.
However, five days after calving, rumination figures fell sharply.
The feeding times (green line) exceeded the rumination times (navy blue line) indicating underfeeding.
What do the Health Alert graphs show?
You will receive six graphs showing the average number of health alerts being triggered during calving transition time:
Your farm data shown as a blue line.
The blue line and % number in large type in the inside is the average number of health alerts triggered on your farm for the period.
Regional data shown as background colours
The background colours and small numbers on the outside show the benchmark derived from other Datamars Active Tag customers in your region. Use this information for context.
Colour key:
Gold - Top 20% - lowest number of health alerts
Silver - Next 20% for health alerts
Bronze - Next 20% for health alerts
Light Grey - Next 20% for health alerts
Dark Grey - Bottom 20% - highest number of health alerts
Interpreting the graphs
A health alert is triggered when there has been a significant change in animal behaviour. This often corresponds with calving and low rumination rates. A good transition is when there is a very low average number of alerts for all periods except the day of calving.
Actions
Use Datamars Livestock
In Datamars Livestock, create an action list to identify individual animals with low rumination rates before and after calving. These animals can be drafted out for extra care.
Seek advice
If your herd rumination minutes are low (matching the dark or light grey benchmark figures), we recommend consulting a veterinarian or farm consultant. You can invite a vet or consultant to your farm in Datamars Livestock and give them administrator permissions so that they automatically receive your custom reports.
📝 You can have multiple administrators in Datamars Livestock.
Calculate your herd's current energy consumption
Use the DairyNZ energy requirements calculator to calculate your herd's current energy consumption.
Read more about the transition period
Refer to these articles on the Dairy NZ website or the Vet Centre's Mooz News website.
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