Infovet is the latest in farm side herd diagnostic support.

Infovet has been used successfully in the past to solve issues of poor reproductive performance far more accurately and efficiently than we have been able to do in the past.  Combining production and reproduction data has enabled us to quantify the impact of early season nutrition on one farm.  The impacts may have been preventable with closer monitoring of the farm's performance. This is another benefit that Infovet can provide. 

On another farm the role of the bull fertility and health issues were raised very quickly when assessing the herd's Fertility Focus Report. 

Infovet pulls information from LIC, Ambreed in the very near future, Fonterra, Franklin Vets and the various laboratories into a single information porthole.  The outcomes;

• Having your pregnancy tests entered on farm via a laptop, electronic or printed results being available instantly and secure forever.  Management lists/analysis available the same day
• Pregnancy testing data appearing in MINDA without you having to manually enter it
• Your vet being better informed about your farm, able to look up the latest individual cow information online before treating a cow, and printing you a legible treatment plan for each case they see.
• Your vet having data from a range of sources at their fingertips (including case records from other vets) should you require rapid expert assistance in solving a herd health problem
• When your regular vet is away, having your back-up vet with the same information to hand
• Personalised automated milk quality and herd health alerts for proactive monitoring; solving problems in the early stages before they come expensive
• Seeing how you stack up against local and national animal health and production benchmarks.

Clinic Story - tales from the field

How Franklin Vets is using smartphones with Infovet for rapid diagnosis
After receiving a call from a dairy client to deliver a calf early on Saturday morning it came as no surprise that there were a few other 'while you are here...' jobs lined up for Greg Lindsay.

One in particular was a cow looking like death warmed up. Discussions with the farm manager revealed that after losing a few cows with similar presenting signs that same week, management were starting to get a bit worried. Cows were initially looking off-colour, with reduced feed intakes, becoming very dehydrated over a course of 2-3 days before dying.

Says Greg, "On clinical examination it was evident that this animal was suffering from a severe case of acidosis. After providing treatment, thoughts centred on this potentially being somewhat of a herd problem, Infovet was my next port of call. Using the internet feature on my smartphone the farm manager and I were able to pull up a milkfat graph while he gave me an update on the herd's feed inputs. An immediate alarm rang when it was mentioned that 2kgDM Kiwifruit had been added to the supplement mix around a week ago! Over the course of the week, fat percentage plummeted from around 4.6% to below 4.0%. Rapid diagnosis of this herd problem proved invaluable with immediate changes to the herd's ration introduced."

In conjunction with the farm advisor levels of fibre were lifted, dietary buffers added and the degree of mixing of the ration reduced. Continued monitoring through Infovet saw improvements in milk production and milkfat percentage, instilling much confidence in the farm-staff as to the benefits of technology - not only Infovet but Smartphones as well!