The Gallagher DairyScale is the world’s first stand alone, automatic walk over weighing system, customised to meet the needs of New Zealand dairy farmers.
Regular weighing of your dairy cows will help with the management of:
Management of feeding levels:
Monitoring of overall herd weight ensures your feed regime is satisfying your cow feed demands at different times of the season.
Compare performance between herds and monitor the impact of feed supplements.
Management of reproductive performance:
Assessment of weight loss after calving will enable you to manage your feed. Information that makes it possible for you to identify those cows continuing to lose weight after six weeks of lactation, allows you to draft these animals and feed them preferentially. This process will increase their chance of becoming pregnant quickly when mating begins.
Drying-off timing decisions:
To achieve the correct calving liveweights, drying off decisions need to be timely. Frequent weighing will identify those individual cows within the herd that have lost the most weight over their lactation. It will also identify those cows approaching a weight at which they need to be dried off to ensure cow condition can be recovered during the winter period prior to calving.
Improved genetic selection:
Cow liveweight determines the maintenance feed required. Large cows producing a given amount of milk solids per year, are less efficient than smaller cows producing the same amount.
Monitoring growth of young stock required for mating:
Regular weighing of young stock will enable you to manage the feed regime to achieve the required growth rate. As a general rule of thumb, young stock should be 60% of mature weight before mating begins.
Individual animal health monitoring:
Cows that are sick have poor appetite and spend more time lying down and less time eating. Regular weighing of individual cows can be used to identify cows that may be suffering from illness or lameness.
