Managing change on your dairy farm

On a dairy farm, the choices you make every day—whether carefully planned or in response to unexpected challenges—can leave a lasting mark on your farm’s productivity and animal health.

Some changes are intentional and others just happen. But when you can connect what’s happening on the ground with measurable data, you’re better prepared to improve, troubleshoot issues, and respond to the unexpected.

So let’s talk about how you can better manage change, both intentional and not, across your dairy farm. And how keeping track of your farm data will help you no matter your circumstances.

‍

The two types of changes across your dairy farm

There are two types of changes dairy farmers typically encounter: intentional changes based on a conscious decision and unintentional changes that come from external or unexpected factors. Managing both effectively requires a proactive approach and reliable tools that streamline monitoring and analysis.

Here’s how to handle each type of change to keep your farm productive and operations running smoothly.

‍

Navigating intentional change

Intentional changes are adjustments you make with a clear goal in mind. This could mean:

• Changing the energy level in your feed to increase milk production, 
• Adjusting herd groupings, 
• Or introducing new protocols for animal health. 

To know if these adjustments are effective, it’s essential to document and track their impact. Keeping a centralized record of intentional changes lets you look back and assess whether each adjustment had the desired effect, allowing for continuous improvement.

As a farmer, logging each change—such as a feed adjustment—helps you see exactly how it affects production or health metrics. This process gives you data to compare outcomes against your expectations, informing decisions down the line and giving you a clearer understanding of what works best on your farm.

Connecterra Platform simplifies this process by providing tools specifically designed to track and visualize these changes. The Impact Tracker lets you log each change and see how it affects various KPIs. Meanwhile, the Analytics Charts help you visualize how these adjustments played out over time. Together, they enable you to connect specific actions to real outcomes, making it easier to see what worked and refine your strategies accordingly.

Nathan Brandt, the herd manager of Four Cubs Farm, a 1,100-cow Holstein farm in Grantsburg, Wisconsin, found these two features of Connecterra to be the most helpful. “We want to look to the future, but you’ve got to kind of look to the past first, to learn things and, hopefully, direct your management decisions in the right way. And I saw that with the timeline and some of those tracking tools, it helped me make better decisions.”

‍

Responding to unintentional change

Not all changes are within your control. Sometimes, shifts occur that require a quick response—like unexpected fluctuations in feed quality, health indicators, or even environmental conditions. For example, variations in the nutrient profile across different sections of a bunker can impact feed intake or animal health, causing drops in key metrics if not addressed early.

Unintentional changes like these require a reactive approach. But in order to react, you need to already be monitoring key metrics to spot fluctuations. 

To do this, farmers must rely on consistently monitoring core indicators to identify any sudden changes that may indicate a problem. For instance, if you notice a sudden drop in DMI, you might be able to trace it back to a variation in feed composition and address the issue before it significantly impacts production.

However, Connecterra also offers multiple features that make this reactive process easier and more efficient. By leveraging features like Copilot Farm Briefings, which provide a summary of key trends, you can catch significant shifts early on. This daily snapshot saves time and brings important patterns to your attention without the need for manually combing through data. Meanwhile, the KPI Insights feature sends alerts when metrics like rumination time or milk yield fluctuate unexpectedly, so you can investigate and address issues early.

By staying on top of unintentional changes with a structured monitoring system, you’re able to respond quickly and minimize any negative impacts on productivity or animal welfare.

‍

Build a data-driven approach to farm management

Change is an inevitable part of dairy farming, but by tracking and analyzing both planned and unplanned adjustments, you can turn each one into an opportunity for improvement. 

When you actively log intentional changes, you gain insights that help you fine-tune your management strategies for better outcomes. And by monitoring key metrics for unexpected shifts, you’re better prepared to handle issues before they impact your farm’s productivity.

Using Connecterra, managing these changes becomes more efficient and data-driven, helping you make better decisions with less guesswork. 

However, don’t just take our word for it. See for yourself how tracking can make a difference. Sign up today for a free 60-day trial—no credit card required.