Technology integration announcements coincide with the second annual Connect Summit, the dairy industry’s premier technology conference

Tulare, Calif.Valley Agricultural Software (VAS) has announced new technology integrations with dairy industry leaders Nedap, Vault Technologies and CafoPro to improve dairy operations, business and compliance. Each integration leverages core VAS software solutions such as DairyComp, FeedComp and ParlorComp to empower dairies of all sizes with greater analysis and interpretation of data to improve their business.

Nedap Heat and Health Monitoring; Plus ParlorBoss Integration

VAS and Nedap have built upon an existing partnership/integration to further enhance the heat and health data generated by Nedap sensors incorporated into VAS DairyComp. Simultaneously, data from DairyComp is integrated within Nedap software solutions to help improve dairy operations, from the control of Nedap drafting activities to the location of animals within the facility.

“This helps dairy farmers in decision-making based on reliable and real-time information,” says Woltherus Karsijns, sales director, Nedap, “both on operational and strategic levels, allowing them to manage and control their herds more efficiently, and to increase profitability.”

New enhancements include:

• A heat cycle graph that provides additional reproduction insights that help find cows with irregular heats, non-cycling cows and non-pregnant cows
• Reports on eating and rumination of individual cows for early detection of health issues, intensive monitoring of transition cows and post-treatment recovery
• Integration of animal lists from DairyComp into Nedap dairy management solutions that allow for automatic drafting of specific cows for treatment or routing, and simplified animal location.

VAS and Nedap have also integrated scanning and identification technologies that make it easier for operations that already have Nedap infrastructure to incorporate VAS ParlorBoss. ParlorBoss is a VAS-exclusive technology that serves up custom, color-coded information on each cow as it nears the end of the rotary related to health, treatment and breeding to more efficiently sort the cow, either back to its pen or to the appropriate treatment area. This new integration allows dairies to use existing Nedap scanning and ID technology to simplify and reduce the expense related to the deployment of ParlorBoss.

Sharpening Profitability, Future Production with Vault

VAS and Vault are also enhancing the integration of their solutions by populating Vault with extensive data from VAS software that brings together dairy production and market information/forecasts to give dairy operators the best perspective into future profitability. Accurate herd, milk and feed information matched to forecasted future milk prices within Vault give producers the information they need to determine how much milk they should produce in the future and how many animals they will need to achieve their financial goals. It also allows producers to determine how much and what utilization’s of milk needed to hedge their mailbox price.

“This becomes the dairy industry’s most robust and accurate integration of input and production data with pricing forecasts to help producers develop a roadmap to meet their business goals,” says Ryan Yonkman, co-founder of Vault Technologies.

Improving Sustainability and Monitoring Environmental Impacts with CafoPro

CafoPro is a web-based EPA and state compliance software package that allows dairy farmers to track and report all compliance initiatives in one central program. The enhancement of the existing partnership between CafoPro and VAS (one-way data flow into CafoPro) provides greater depth of intelligence that improves milk and manure production estimates using factors such as head count, age, reproduction stages, milk production and somatic cell count.

“Achieving greater sustainability and transparency requires a full understanding of the impacts our business has related to waste and the efficient use of resources,” says Norman Mullin, president, CafoPro. “These technology integrations provide dairy operators with powerful information that allows for more proactive and effective business decisions that positively influence each dairy and the industry as a whole.”