Using collars to improve health, heat detection & pinpoint AI serves

Agriland

04-05-2025

Health and heat detection collars have become very popular on dairy farms across the country as they have the ability to alert farmers of the start of a cow's standing heat, which is invaluable information around the breeding season.
With the increased uptake in sexed semen and the precision of the timing of service that needs to come with the product, collars and other heat detection aids have become a necessity for many.
Sexed semen is a tampered-with product, as the sperm cells are damaged during the sorting process, which means the viability of the sex-sorted sperm cells in the reproductive tract is shorter (less than 12 hours) than for conventional (over 24 hours).
So, the timing of sexed semen is a bit more of a challenge to get right and will require more accurate heat detection along with possibly serving cows at least twice a day.
When heifers and cows are being inseminated with sexed semen, artificial insemination (AI) should be conducted 14-20 hours after their observed heat, and the use of heat detection aids allows farmers to get this timing exactly right, improving conception rates.
Health and heat detection collars or aids
Collars are often fitted on breeding heifers and cows a couple of weeks before breeding to start measuring their behaviours and collecting data to fine-tune the devices.
While tags are sometimes an alternative to the collars, they often have a lower battery life.
Many systems will measure a range of behaviours, including side lying, low activity, medium activity, high activity, eating (different when inside), rumination, walking, grazing, heavy breathing/panting, and abnormal behaviour.
The heat and health detection aids have certainly rose in popularity. MSD Animal Health recently achieved a significant landmark through the sale of its 300,000th SenseHub collar on an Irish farm, a tally it has reached in just four years.
This shows the demand out there for collars to improve farm efficiency and streamline work tasks while reducing labour on farms, when it is so hard got.
Liam Hyland, who is farming with his father Padraig, milks 850 cows on his holding in Ballacolla, Co Laois, was the landmark recipient of the collar also recently installed the SenseHub drafting gate.
Customer Success & Technical Manager, MSD Animal Health SenseHub Technology, Catherine Heffernan alongside farmer Liam Hyland (Ballacolla, Co Laois), recipient of the 300,000th SenseHub collar sold by MSD Animal Health in Ireland.
The SenseHub range includes a youngstock ear tag for calves, which monitors their behaviour; collars for heifers, drafting technology as well as a somatic cell count and milk plus a sensor which measures milk constituents for each cow at each milking.
Ruminant business unit director for MSD Animal Health in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, Jack O'Connor said: 'We're very proud to have reached such a significant number.'
'This success is testament to the hard work and dedication of our team,' O'Connor added.
Many systems will send alerts by text and through an app notification for health issues and heat activity, so they can be extremely useful in herds, with their potential to save on missed heats, poor conception rates, and treatment costs.
Most systems will provide the following information on individual cows:
Heat data, indicating when the cow is in heat, the ideal time for insemination including sexed semen window, anoestrus cows, and irregular heats;
Health alerts, including abortions and internal sickness;
Transition information between phases, e.g., pre and post calving;
Nutrition irregularities;
Heat stress;
Pregnancy probability.
Heat and health monitoring systems are grant-aided through Targeted Agriculture Modernisation Schemes (TAMS) 3.
The grant payable on the lower amount of actual cost or reference cost, with the reference cost for a base station at €2,833 and the reference cost of collars at €112.24.
If conception rates have been poor and the cost of breeding has increase due to this along with missed heats and health issues in the herd, investing in collars or a heat and health monitoring system may be worthwhile.
This investment may also shorten the calving interval, which will mean more days in milk and more milk in the tank. A compact six-week calving rate may work out cheaper by having cows on a predominantly grass diet throughout the year.
According to Teagasc, a cow calved in February will have a diet throughout the year of 70% grass whereas a May-calved cow will only have 40% grass diet with about 18% more purchased concentrates, driving up the costs of production.
If you are thinking of putting in collars to compact your calving season and improve the health of the herd, do your homework and talk to your dairy advisor to see which system will suit your herd best, as there are multiple companies providing the service and one may suit your herd better than the next.