Does Bessie have a touch of mastitis? Or is she on her way to suffering from ketosis or another metabolic imbalance? Or is the dairy cow starting to come into heat? Farmers can now get the answers to these and similar questions almost before the cow herself. This can happen with the new monitoring system, Herd Navigator, presented as a three star Europe New Product at Agromek 2008.

Herd Navigator is based on research results from the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences (DJF) at the University of Aarhus, technological development at Lattec I/S (a joint venture between FOSS Analytical A/S and DeLaval International AB) and results from studies at the Danish Cattle Research Centre as well as trials on commercial farms in collaboration with the Danish Cattle Federation. The result is a system which can tell the farmer about each cow’s condition long before it was possible previously - and online, to boot.

The secret is in the milk, which contains information about the cow’s condition at a very early stage. While the cow is being milked, a milk sample is re-directed into a milk analyser. Here milk is analysed for various compounds. With the aid of biological and statistical models developed at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, and which the farmer has available on his pc, the risks of mastitis, ketosis, protein surplus or deficit, reproductive disorders or heat are calculated. The farmer receives the results in the form of easy-to-read pages and can take immediate action.

- The advantage of the system is that it can predict the cow’s condition long before the farmer can spot visible symptoms. This means he can prevent or treat the cow before she gets seriously ill to the benefit of bovine welfare and the farmer’s wallet, Head of Department Klaus Lønne Ingvartsen points out. Klaus Lønne Ingvartsen and the department have contributed to the development of the system.

The developmental work has taken place under the auspices of the project BIOSENS, that is supported by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries’ Innovation Law. The results are so promising that the project will continue until 2011 to develop more measurement parameters that can provide further clues to the cow’s condition and her milk quality.

For more information please contact: Head of Department Klaus Lønne Ingvartsen, Department of Animal Health, Welfare and Nutrition, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Aarhus, telephone: +45 8999 1505, e-mail: KlausL.Ingvartsen@agrsci.dk