Member’s Voice
Photos (left to right): Greta Snider Halahan of Singing Brook Farms oversees the farm’s CowManager system; Singing Brook Farms in Imler, PA was established in 1951; Mitzi, the herd’s highest producing cow, showing off her CowManager tag just after herd check
COWMANAGER® AT SINGING BROOK FARMS In August of 2019, the staff of Singing Brook Farms in Imler, PA decided to install CowManager, the four-in-one heat, health, rumination, and location herd monitoring system sold and serviced by Premier. After about one year of utilizing the system, they have discovered new efficiencies and opportunities for the operation. Owned in partnership by father and son Bruce and Ross Snider, Singing Brook milks 290 cows. Approximately 300 cows and heifers on the farm have CowManager ear tags. Greta Snider Halahan, daughter of Bruce, oversees the CowManager system as part of her duties to manage the animals from a reproductive protocol and procedures standpoint.
How It’s Used
Currently, Singing Brook utilizes CowManager’s Fertility and Health modules. The Fertility module provides data on heat intensity and heat stage for timely insemination, and the Health module provides early disease detection based on individual cow behavior. “The fertility module is my favorite,” said Halahan. “Not only has CowManager helped our numbers from a repro standpoint, but I also have more confidence in making decisions about individual cows. Managing timed A.I. as a whole herd isn’t practical for us—this helps us put our resources and manpower towards the right cows. Our repro numbers are the best they’ve been in 8-9 years!”
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Halahan said that their milk production also has improved every month, and they hope for continued growth.
Flexibility in Management
The CowManager system provides Halahan and Singing Brook with flexibility in how they manage the cows. Halahan lives in Lebanon, PA, about two and a half hours from Singing Brook, with her husband and two- and three-year-old sons. Outside of her involvement with the farm, she serves as a speaker for agricultural organizations such as Farm Credit, Dairy Girl Network, and others, presenting on communications and personality as they relate to agricultural work. Thanks to the CowManager app and desktop program, she is able to keep an eye on everything from home and notify on-farm staff as necessary. Halahan travels to the farm routinely for herd checks, when the CowManager tags are also checked and receive maintenance as needed. “It’s really cool how in our situation CowManager has allowed me to get involved with the farm remotely, and it has helped us to transition plan,” said Halahan.
Training Farm Employees
Halahan said that she would love to add the Nutrition module to their system eventually, as it can help cows achieve maximum health and milk production by tracking whether or not an animal maintains stable eating and rumination. However, she wants to focus on using and implementing the tools they have now before expanding.
Every employee on the farm has access to the CowManager app and data. Even if they don’t use it for technical applications, milkers, calf feeders, and others are able to look up basic cow information. In the coming weeks and months, Halahan plans to have a Spanish-speaking trainer from Select Sires work with Singing Brook’s Hispanic milkers to provide them with the knowledge they need to maximize the benefits of the Health module. “CowManager shows us when a cow is sick before we can see something wrong, and we want to train our milkers to discover what is wrong when that alert comes up that the cow is flagged as sick,” said Halahan. “This will allow us to intervene earlier.”
Reducing Uncertainty
Halahan feels that CowManager takes away uncertainty from the farm, whether that’s the uncertainty of human error or the uncertainty of a pandemic. “It’s a labor unit that is consistent,” she said. “We split up the herdsman duties, and it takes a whole skillset off the table that we don’t have to hire for anymore. It has to be right every day, and we can trust CowManager.” In regards to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Halahan said, “Without the CowManager system, there are probably things we would have worried about that we don’t have to with the system. If anyone would have gotten sick I could have managed from the system. We are not as subject to personnel.”
