Users

I'm Geeske van der Streek. We have a dairy farm in Friesland and are currently milking 170 cows.

When you get up in the morning, one of the first things you check is how the milk production is running compared with the weekly average, then the concentrated feed intake, the number of litres per cow, and then you have a quick idea of how things are going. I think a great advantage is that you can already see at a distance which cows are in heat, for example. You could then decide which cow to place into routing so it arrives where you want to inseminate it, and when you arrive at the stable the cow is actually there.

Actually, I always look at T4C InHerd to check which cows should be sent to the dairy, also when I clean stalls, because then you can bring the animals along with you at the same time. When you see the details for a particular cow, you can enter what the follow-up action is right away. It is very nice that you can do things right away, which prevents too much running back and forth, because this really takes a lot of time since we have a fairly large stable with quite a lot of cows. Then you really have to omit all unnecessary actions.

This also prevents mistakes, because you can carry out your actions right away and know what you were planning to do. You do not forget so easily, because you handle the cow immediately.

You do not have to be at home to know what needs to be done. We also sometimes call each other when we are away from home: do you want to do this, or do you want to do that. This you can easily see on your cell phone.

After T4C InHerd was installed, it has just been a question of trying, and then you learn it very quickly, make quick use of it. You learn best by practice.

We are all so used to using T4C InHerd. In the testing phase, I remember there were some days when it was not available. Then you really miss it and find it very inconvenient that you have to go back to the computer to look up or enter things. If you're accustomed to using it, you do not want to be without it.

Hello, my name is Sven Klingemann. I run a dairy farm here together with my parents and my wife. We have around 130 to 140 milk cows with 2 milking robots and 170 hectares of land. I've been using the Lely T4C app for about 5 months.

I could imagine the app would become an even more important tool if you have a lot of employees, because it gives you precise control over what work has been done and by whom, and even tells you what work may have been done incorrectly. I think the larger the operation the more advantages the app can bring to your business. The app has major benefits for smaller businesses too because you can easily monitor everything from your smartphone.

The app streamlines operations and is therefore a great help and provides relief even for small businesses. For example, there is a menu item in the app called ‘udder health‘ (Euter-Gesundheit). When the animal appears in this menu, I'll go to the animal and check it manually. If there is a health issue with the udder, then I can immediately record the details and take any necessary action, for example, ‘milk direct‘ (direkt melken), ‘routing‘ (Tierführung) or ‘separation‘ (Tierseparation). I will take the animal to the robot, the animal is milked and immediately in the straw pen. "Everything can be done by smartphone and from directly within the barn!".

I use the app for checking udder health. For example, if a particular cow is indicated to me, I can pick the cow out from the herd, go to the cow and have a look at the udder. I can also set the following actions right from the app, such as ‘milk cow‘ (Tier melken) or ‘separation‘ (Tierseparation). This way, I can milk the cow and separate accordingly.

The app allows you to monitor the herd straight from your smartphone. This is one more step towards automation. It also saves trips to the computer. Every minute that I can save really pays off. If I can save just 5 minutes a day, over a year this adds up to a lot. In the mornings, I no longer have to go straight to my computer. A quick look on my mobile is enough. I can go to the barn and immediately start herding the cows. This means the first cow is standing in the milking robot 5 – 10 minutes earlier in the mornings compared to before, when I was still sat at the computer and had to make notes on a sheet of paper. That alone saves me 10 minutes each morning.

If a cow calves I can use the ‘calving‘ app (Abkalben) and enter the calf number and the sex, as well as other details. Just like it already does in T4C, ‘routing‘ and ‘separation‘ happens automatically when a calving takes place. For milk separation, I just have to herd the cow to the robot and off we go.

It's great when you are working in the field and you can quickly check whether you need to go back to the farm to herd more cows, or still have another 2 hours left. During field work, you can make really good use of the app.

The app is very easy to operate and although it is different to T4C, when you have used it once, it is very simple, clearly arranged and easy to use in my opinion. I can't imagine doing my work without it. Previously, it was always a little bit chaotic with pieces of paper everywhere. Now, I can do everything using the app. The app is very important to me!