Like people using fitness trackers, more and more dairy farmers are using automated activity monitors as an important part of herd reproductive management. Dr. Stephen LeBlanc, a professor at the Ontario Veterinary College, and PhD candidate and Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) doctoral scholar Tony Bruinjé studied more than 1,300 cows in two commercial dairy herds to investigate the link between a cow’s post-partum health and the likelihood of detecting estrus by activity monitors for first breeding.

This research project was funded by Dairy Farmers of Ontario, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Ontario Agri-Food Innovation Alliance, a collaboration between the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the University of Guelph.

Read the article at Dairy at Guelph: Improving the fertility of dairy cows using health monitoring strategies [1]