A good start at calving is key for optimal performance throughout lactation. With Active Tag continuously monitoring your animals, Datamars Livestock will notify you soon after calving has occurred.
Monitoring when calving has occurred allows you to:
Know what is happening in the calving pen, even when you are not there.
Easily identify cows which have recently calved.
Focus on giving cows and calves a good start by giving you more time.
How does Datamars Livestock know when an animal has likely calved?
An animal will be identified as likely to have calved if she exhibits irregular behaviour during her calving window. The calving window is 10 days before and 10 days after the expected calving date.
Animals identified as Likely to have calved are included in the Likely Calved report.
24 hours after calving, they automatically leave the list. This ensures you always have a real-time view of animals who have recently calved.
You can configure notifications so that you receive an alert for an animal likely to have calved. The alert will be sent after calving, normally within 4-5 hours.
Once you have confirmed that an animal has calved, we recommend adding a calving event to the animal's record either directly in Datamars Livestock or in your Farm Management Package.
Watch this video to learn:
How Datamars Livestock knows when an animal is likely to have calved.
A 'likely calved' notification will typically be sent after the calf has been delivered, though it could be before, depending on how calving progresses.
Pregnancy and insemination data must be entered manually or via an integration.
Viewing animals likely to have calved
To view a list of animals likely to have calved using the mobile app:
On the Dashboard, tap Likely Calved (24 hrs).
On the Likely Calved screen, a list of all animals likely to have calved in the last 24 hours will be displayed. The time when calving was first detected is displayed.
Click on an animal ID to view more details.
To view animals likely to have calved using the web app:
From the Home screen, click on Likely Calved (last 24h).
On the Likely Calved screen, a list of all animals likely to have calved in the last 24 hours will be displayed. The time when calving was first detected is displayed together with the expected calving date.
Click on an animal ID to view more details.
How does Datamars Livestock determine the cow's expected calving date?
This date is derived from the last insemination date or the last pregnancy check with 'days in calf' recorded and the gestation length. The default gestation length is 283 days, but this can be configured in the web app in the Farm Settings screen.
A cow has calved on my farm but I didn't receive a 'likely calved' notification - why not?
There are several possible reasons:
The 'likely calved' notification is disabled by default. Check that you have enabled this alert for every Datamars Livestock user on your farm who needs to know this information.
A 'likely calved' notification can only be sent for animals with an expected calving date. See above details on how we determine expected calving date.
An active tag must be fitted for 7 days before a notification for likely calved will be sent.
It is possible that an animal did not change behaviour for long enough to be identified by the 'likely calved' algorithm. This happens from time-to-time, usually for cows which have calved unassisted.
Why have I received two likely calved notifications for one cow?
If Datamars Livestock doesn't receive confirmation of a cow having calved, we continue to look for irregular animal behaviour until 10 days after her expected calving date. If a cow has calved, make sure to record this.
Why is this a BETA feature?
This is a new feature for our Active Tag solution. As a result, we expect to make improvements over the coming weeks and months as we receive feedback.
To help us learn, you can help by adding a calved event to the animal's record either directly in Datamars Livestock or in your Farm Management Package.
If you have any feedback about this feature while it is still in BETA, please contact our support team using any of the details below.
You may also be interested in:
Changing notifications to receive alerts when an animal is likely to have calved.
Adding an event to an animal record to add a calving event.