This episode was recorded in Reno, Nevada for the 2025 Western Dairy Management Conference.
This episode was recorded in Reno, Nevada for the 2025 Western Dairy Management Conference.
Dr. Shabtai gives an overview of her presentation. Afimilk has a new technology that includes a feed efficiency sensor to determine eating, rumination, heat stress monitoring and more. The Feed Efficiency Service combined with the AfiCollar can estimate dry matter intake, which, when combined with Afimilk’s milk meter data, yields an efficiency value of milk income over feed cost for each cow. She details how the algorithm works to predict intake and some of the challenges faced during the development of this technology. The algorithm was developed with Holsteins, but a Jersey algorithm is nearing completion. (5:33)
Shane and Emily share some of their experiences with beta-testing the Feed Efficiency technology on-farm to evaluate, including animal-to-animal variation and variation in different stages of lactation. The panel discusses how genomics could pair with this data to aid in selection decisions. (9:21)
Walt asks Dr. Shabtai to share how the company took the technology from research facilities to commercial farms, and asks Shane and Emily to share how the technology has proven itself on-farm. (13:11)
Shane notes that they’ve had a handle on the milk side of the efficiency equation of individual cows for a while, but they didn’t know much about the feed intake side of the equation. This technology allows for that. Shane also shares how this technology adds another tool to their dairy’s sustainability toolbox. (18:50)
Walt asks both producers to share a metric that they thought was important before, but now that we have more knowledge and technology, it might not be as important as they thought. Shane’s pick is starch level in corn silage, and Emily’s is percent pregnant by 150 days in milk. (21:18)
Dr. Shabtai shares the basics that a producer would need to implement this technology. She details a few things that have changed and will change about the product based on data from beta testing and notes there are always new things to see and find on-farm. (22:59)
Scott asks Shane and Emily what metric they’d like to measure that they can’t measure yet. Shane wonders if there would be a way for AI to compile weather and market data to assist with milk or feedstuff contracting decisions. Emily would like to be able to use more on-farm technology to help manage people. She shares how the data she has now allows her to see different improvements that could be implemented for different milking shifts. Shane talks about need-to-know information versus neat-to-know information. (26:35)
The panel discusses how the technology is updated through software rather than hardware when new versions are available. They also share some tips for implementing the software on-farm. Walt asks each panelist their “I wonder if…” question. (29:58)
The panel wraps up with their take-home thoughts, and Dr. Shabtai shares where farmers can learn more about Afimilk’s feed efficiency technology by visiting afimilk.com. (36:49)
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Scott Sorrell (00:09):
Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Real Science Exchange, the pubcast where leading scientists and industry professionals meet over a few drinks to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. And we're coming to you today from the Western Dairy Management Conference here in Reno, Nevada. Really excited about this next podcast we've got, it's gonna be addressing the shift to feed efficiency based herd management, driving profitability with advanced data. So that, that's something that we need, we've been dealing with recently in the dairy industry. And as that is, how do we measure feed efficiency? It's obviously been a key point of emphasis in, in other species, but we're just kind of getting to that and how in, in the dairy industry. Before I get into that though, I'd kinda like to introduce my co-host for today. Walt Cooley, welcome from progressive Dairy Magazine. Walt, give us a little bit of background about yourself. I think this is the first time to the pub for you and since we're in the pub theme and it's early morning here in Reno. But if you were having a cocktail, what would it be? Oh, okay.
Walt Cooley (01:13):
Well, welcome. Thanks for having me. I appreciate being on the podcast. We have a podcast for Progressive Dairy, which I helped co-host, and so I'm no stranger to the microphone. Appreciate you having me here today to talk about some of the exciting things we're seeing here in Reno, as well as talk to some awesome producers. I am a non-drinker, so my cocktail would probably usually be pretty dry. Probably just a ginger ale or a Okay. Or a bubbly beverage of some soda variety. Yep.
Scott Sorrell (01:40):
Very well. And then my color commentaries for this session is going to be Shane and Emily and
Shane St. Cyr (01:53):
Sure. So I'm, I grew up in Maine on a, a family dairy farm in Maine, small, small farm, and spent my career in the dairy industry. Made my way to upstate New York where became a partner in Adirondack Farm. So we're located in Clinton County, New York. That is right where New York, Canada, and Vermont meet so way in the upper right hand corner. So we have, we call it two locations, one location just south of Plattsburgh, and one location just north of Plattsburgh. And operate a few parlors between those two locations.
Scott Sorrell (02:26):
And how many cows again?
Shane St. Cyr (02:28):
A few thousand cows in that region. Yep.
Scott Sorrell (02:31):
Right. And Emily, tell me about yourself.
Emily Starceski (02:34):
I'm Emily Starski. I'm originally from Western New York, and I'm a herd manager at Adirondack North.
Scott Sorrell (02:41):
Okay. Very well. And our featured guest is Dr. Veronica Shedi from the F Milk Research Team. Welcome, Veronica. If you had a drink today staying in theme, what would that be?
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (02:54):
Okay. So if I had a drink, I would love like a pomegranate wine. Nice. She's originated in Israel and so tasty, also very healthy. Has lots of antioxidants in there. So it
Scott Sorrell (03:07):
Very healthy. Didn't bring with you, did
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (03:08):
You? No. Okay. I should have three
Scott Sorrell (03:10):
Next time.
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (03:11):
Yeah. so as you said my name is Veronica Tai. Eh, my background is veterinarian. I studied in the Jerusalem university back in Israel, and I have some p practice, sorry, I I have some large animal practice medicine in my background and also been a research, eh, associated in Upen with Dr. Dip. We studied some ways to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Okay. Which is very, very on the topic Yeah. With food deficiency. And to today, I'm a product product manager in a milk for about three years now. And very exciting work. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (03:57):
Yeah. Good.
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (03:58):
Love that. Mm-Hmm
Scott Sorrell (03:59):
I had the opportunity to go on several dairies in Israel about three years ago. Yeah. Fascinating. They do a great job over there. Right. In fact, I think they've got the second highest milk production in all the world, so higher than United States was, which is number three. So they do a nice job over there. If you wouldn't mind, kinda give me some an overview of the presentation. Some of the key elements that you talked about yesterday.
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Dr. Veronica Shabtai (05:33):
So I talked about the new capability that we have. It's actually within a feed efficiency sensor we call it, but it's a, a color, an AFI color that on top of being a heat detection color and having rumination and eating within it, and obviously painting for heat stress. We also have dry matter intakes within that. And being able to measure diameter intake per animal, which is very new and exciting. You can now know with the milk production from our milk meters, the feed efficiency out of that, like how this animal is taking her feed and converting it into milk, how efficient she's, and from that, you can take the income of a feed like, you know, the income from the milk, now you know the expense from the feed, and you have every cow as profitable or not profitable and take new decisions upon this new data. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (06:32):
So there are other kind of collars and tags that, that they, they, they, they measure rumination and things of that sort. What, what makes this different and, and how is it exactly, are you measuring this dry matter intake.
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (06:47):
So, a, we are aware that many companies try to have dramaturg intake within the colors. And it, it wasn't easy for us. It took us over three years of research to, to get there. We worked with some partnering universities that have a feed tr in the research facilities. We worked in a Michigan State University and in another university in Canada, in Italy. And we looked at the algorithm that the color is giving the, that is based off accelerator matter. It's very similar to other colors, how they work and put it across the actual weight of the, the eating, the feed that the animals are eating. Okay. And, you know, we correlated with the feed delivery that the farmers are giving us. And it all comes to very accurate data of up to 94%.
Scott Sorrell (07:44):
94%? Yes. Okay. What were some of the challenges you guys ran across in developing this algorithm?
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (07:51):
So you take different seasons and you take different feeds across, across the globe. So it's not easy. And sometimes different breeds I can say. And it's not easy to come up with that information. And the, the first kind of thinking is to have to look at eating time because it makes sense. Like, you look at this animal, you see her eating and you say, okay, she's consuming feed. So we took this approach and we saw that this is the wrong one, and the new one actually worked. So we saw that it's not the eating time that we need to measure, but actually to look when the animal is consuming, ingesting the feed and to measure that. Okay. And that's how it worked.
Scott Sorrell (08:40):
Yeah. Do you find a lot of variability between animals or even between breeds?
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (08:46):
We do. So our research was done on Holsteins because that's actually what you have in research facilities. And today we're working on having an algorithm from for jerseys. We are very close to having that. But I think it'll be a good question for my friends from Emily and Shane because they see the diversity. I know there is, but they can actually, you know, talk a little bit more about it.
Scott Sorrell (09:12):
Yeah. No, that's a great segue. So the proof is in the pudding. Shane Emily, tell me about your experience with the, with the technology so far. You've been doing it, as I understand, for about a year.
Shane St. Cyr (09:21):
Yeah, so we had a greenfield facility. We started up last March, and that's when we started using the AFI callers and AFI lab and we're asked to be a part of their beta testing and, and jumped on it because sustainability is something we're looking at in all aspects of our dairy. We, we have a digester and this just fed right into, you know, now we can really look at sustainability in our cows too. Yeah. Emily can talk great on day-to-day use of, of the product.
Scott Sorrell (09:49):
Yeah.
Emily Starceski (09:50):
Yeah. So I utilize it every week whenever I get my lovely little report from afi. And I think what I found was really interesting is the difference between individual cows, the difference between different stages of lactation, what their feed efficiency's gonna look like. And it kind of was a test for myself, especially when looking at DMVs. I would make my list of who I thought needed to leave and AFI was giving me a list and it proved that AFI was giving me a really solid number that I could use instead of spending my time going out in the groups and trying to figure out who was the next cow to leave.
Scott Sorrell (10:25):
Yeah, okay. Do you guys deal with genomics and 'cause I think the feed efficiency is relatively heritable, and I'm kind of curious if you've seen that match up at all.
Shane St. Cyr (10:37):
So we, we do genomic testing. We aren't to the spot yet that we can really dive in with this. But, you know, that's something that we hope to work towards in the future. And that's, that's what's exciting about any technology. And this one in particular is you start at one spot and, and it just keeps going. And you, you may not, you may think you know where it's gonna end up, but most of the time you don't. And you end up in some pretty neat spots and some pretty neat decision making tools.
Scott Sorrell (11:03):
Yeah. So Emily, you said you get a report, is that weekly that, that comes from a milk? So the data is going to a data center somewhere and then being crunched there and then comes back to you in the form of a report?
Emily Starceski (11:14):
Yes, that is correct. And like weekly we enter in our dry matter intakes for our different groups, but we're also hoping that feed link will start to work with AFI a little bit. And that'll just happen without a person needing to sit at the computer and edit it in. But it's a relatively quick process. Yeah. It takes two minutes.
Scott Sorrell (11:31):
Yeah. So you've only been at it for a year, but have you seen a movement in the herd in terms of overall feed efficiency in the herd?
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (11:40):
Can I, can I add to
Scott Sorrell (11:42):
Yes. Sorry,
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (11:43):
So regarding the, the heritability of the rai, right? Yeah. So it, it's not like our knowledge, it's not a milk knowledge. It has been published in many, like, years of publication that feed efficiency is a heritable trait. Yeah. So one of the applications that we suggest to the farmer or we work with is if you want to be more feed efficient on your farm, you need to breed your most efficient animals to like sexy semen because these are the replacement haters you wanna have in your future farm. And those that are least efficient, those that are least profitable in your farm, maybe, you know, beef them or d and beef if you don't need as much replacements or, or so depends on the farm. And so that's how we work. So Shane and Emily had the feed efficiency for several months, not even a year, I think. And to see those feed efficiency move it'll take some years. Yeah. So today they, I guess they have the calling profit out of it, like the decision which is more profitable and which is least, and to call first the ones that are least profitable, this is where the, the money, the small money, maybe the tactic decisions, but the future hurt that they are building, that's going to be very profitable. Yeah. And that's where we are going towards the decisions.
Walt Cooley (13:11):
Okay. Good. Veronica, I wanted to ask you, one of the questions that always comes up when we talk about technology for large herd dairy farms is tell me how it was built. And they want to have confidence that it's gonna work. So talk a little bit about, you know, the, the research setting. You're talking about feed bins versus maybe feed through headlocks and some of the differences maybe in product production of the cows that are on the research farm versus a commercial dairy farm. How have you accounted for that in bringing this to the commercial market?
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (13:38):
That's a good question because we took the research we, which we knew is very accurate and good. And then it went to the hands of kind of the product side because we had a lot of data points, but we didn't really know how the farmer would wanna use it. 'cause We want to bring it to our software and to bring it to decisions on the farm. But, but still there is a gap there. So we had over, in a year of pilot project, that's what Emily has touched upon, those reports that she's getting every week. This is the pilot where we send the farmer all this data and see how they use it. And we work closely together. And today in Reno we are launching to have the feed efficiency capability within our software in AFI farm to be available for our farmers, which is an exciting point for us.
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (14:37):
So part of having that in a commercial farm, because we don't have beans on commercial farms, we can't really test it as a research, but we have many points that add up for it being accurate. First we have the farmers that use it and see that it aligns with what they see on actual farms. And we also, for our kind of reassurance, we did some testing in commercial farms. We took two pens and switched animals. Like we took from one pen, a 10 animals that are very high in the dry matter intake and switched from another group that are 10 animals that are very low in dry matter intake and expected a drop in drama intake in one group and a higher in another. And it actually worked. I mean, it's not a surprise, but it's exciting to actually see that in the numbers. We did it in Israel, we did it in China. So it's kind of, you know, another reassurance. And we have lots of stories to share where like, oh, aha. Moments for our farmers. So yeah.
Walt Cooley (15:53):
Shane, talk about that. You know, when any dairy producer puts any new technology on their farm, they're always kind of like, okay, well, is this really gonna work? And you see that with activity monitoring. The first thing is, okay, we, we've been doing this by, you know, intuition for a long time, is the data gonna show the same thing that our gut says? And talk about how this proved itself on your farm.
Shane St. Cyr (16:16):
So yeah, I think you know, we all take pride in the kind of cow people we are, and I want to go out and I, I can find the cow better than that thing. And, and you start to realize that the information you're getting back lines up with what you think. And when it doesn't line up with what you think, it's oftentimes the information is right. And you, you, you were proven wrong and you, you kind of, you got, you can't, you've gotta put your ego in your back pocket when you're using this stuff. 'cause This, this information, the science, the numbers, the, the numbers really do true out to to what's happening in the herd. And this so the dairy industry has kind of gone from individual cow management, smaller sized herds, right? Graining given that individual cow the right amount of grain that she needs, and the next one and the stall, the amount of grain and, and we transition to group management in larger facilities and this and we've, we've been very successful at that. Whether it's you, you make a ration and dry matter intake based on the group. You, you do your synchronization program based on the group, this technology really allows us to come back, take that group, and come back to the individual cow and make those decisions on an individual cow level that brings us to the, the next level of performance, the next level of profitability. So it, it's exciting.
Scott Sorrell (17:43):
Well, if I might share a story real quick. I met a, a nutritionist, you gave a presentation yesterday coming out of the session and just a, a nutritionist I'm very familiar with and just had a very quick conversation, very excited about the technology, and shared a real quick story with me about, you know, this, this is, I I think he said earth shattering or groundbreaking, one of the two. And that it's, and, and then showed a quick story about some research at that he was aware of where the high producing cows they thought they were the great cows, the most efficient ones, and yet they, when they finally came up with, and I don't know how they got the dry matter intake, they were not the, the, the, the all stars they should be because they were consuming lots of dry matter, and yet there were other ones that were far more profitable in the herd. So he was very excited about the, about this technology. So just kind of, kind of reinforcing some of the stuff that you had shared as well. So
Walt Cooley (18:38):
Yeah. Shane, yesterday in your presentation you had mentioned something that I thought was really interesting and a lot of producers can relate to, you know, talk about the expense versus the income side of your business and how this gives you a tool to see both sides now
Shane St. Cyr (18:50):
R right, so, you know, in running a dairy or running a business and you're looking at your milk production or your milk income you know, it's, it's great when milk prices high and you're thinking we're doing well, but that's only half of the story, right? You need the other side of that p and l to really know where you are. So that's what this helps us do on an individual cow basis. We've, we've had the, the income side of the p and l for cows for quite a while with the milk production or fat and protein, and, and we can pencil that out, what she's bringing in. But like that story about the nutritionist, that a hundred pound energy corrected milk cow may not be as profitable as the 95 pound energy corrected milk cow. Yeah. And you know, as Emily mentioned, that can really help us make the decision on, on the back end too, at the end of their careers. Which ones, you know, just looking at the milk, that's what we were using to call before, just looking at the milk, just looking at repro. Now we can look at which one's costing us more to keep in the herd too.
Scott Sorrell (19:55):
Shane, when we first talked to you, you said you were one of the, the beta testers, first thing outta your mouth was sustainability, not, not, not profit loss, but sustainability. Can you talk a little bit more about that? That's obviously top of mind and, and a passion for you.
Shane St. Cyr (20:10):
So at Adirondack, and when we talk about sustainability, and this is not a, a phrase I coined, so I'd love to give credit to who it was, I don't know who it was, but we look at people, profits people, planet profits, right? Yeah. So we, we strive to be an employer of choice. We strive to have good teammates, good people, and, and take care of our people. And we want it to be a fun place to work. That's what's going to sustain our people. Yeah. What's going to sustain our planet is working to drive efficiency, reduce carbon footprint. We have a digester, we do underground manure, transfer lines, and direct injection. This is one another step in that direction. And depending on, not, not everybody likes to hear this part of sustainability, but a business that's not profitable is not sustainable, right? Yeah. So oftentimes sustainability initiatives like this with income or feed cost and feed efficiency, it's great because it aligns with sustainability also leads into profitability.
Scott Sorrell (21:15):
Yeah. Great answer.
Walt Cooley (21:18):
One of the questions I I would like to ask both of our producers today is talk about that, that metric, you've got this great technology now, I always like to ask, what's that metric that you thought was important before? And now as you're getting into the technology, maybe you're like, well, maybe it's not as important as we thought it was. What is that on your form? I think
Shane St. Cyr (21:39):
There's a lot of those things that we've looked at throughout the years. You know, one, one thing if we're, we were talking about nutrition. So historically when you'd take you'd sample your corn silage, for instance, it was all about starch. We need that starch. What's the starch level? Or if you're looking at your hAAG, it's protein. What's that protein level? What's that protein level? And as we learn more now, we know that not all starches are created equal, right? There's digestibility components, there's how well did it in style. So, you know, that one thing we thought we were shooting for, we gotta have high corn, high starch in our corn silage. Are, we've really transitioned our thinking with, with a metric like that. Yeah.
Emily Starceski (22:24):
I think mine would have to be like percent pregnant by 150 days of milk, just because we continue to change voluntary waiting periods. And I think we're getting more and more technology to help us decide when the right time to actually start breeding these animals is. And I think that might start to become a obsolete number, or we're gonna have to change what our KPI is for that.
Walt Cooley (22:45):
Veronica, I think it's really important to share, share with the group here. I mean, it's a technology, but you don't have to necessarily go get a brand new caller to be able to bring this in. Explain, you know, what the basics are. A producer needs to have to be able to use the technology.
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (22:59):
Yes. So the beauty of it is that you don't need to get a new color. The exact color, the did everything, like the heat detection nomination and eating now has the algorithm of dry material intake, so it's the same. And for the milk production, you obviously you need to measure that. So we have our milk meters to know the fat and protein for the income over feed. It's nice, very nice to have our milk analyzer, the AFI lab that you guys have. But we can also use the milk test for that. It's less accurate because it's a, it's a monthly fatten protein, but, but still, it's, it's good enough for some of the farms and it's great. And that's what what we got as a product.
Walt Cooley (23:48):
What get, what, what are you most excited about launching this? I know you've been working on it, you said three years, but I mean, the day is here. So what are you most excited about as, as this gets out to more farms that are just like a DK and, and really on that forefront of their technology use,
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (24:05):
I guess to sit, come to life actually? Like you sit in your office? Not always. I like to travel and see my, my farmers and farms, but you sit in your office and you work tirelessly and you do the calls. And I am based in Israel, so you stay up late at night to talk to the farmers. And, and it's, it's a hard work. And yesterday or today I feel like we are actually celebrating a point like an achievement not just mine for all the team and the farmers we work with. And it's very, very exciting. And I know it's, it's just the beginning of it, like to see what it can do and what buzz it kind of creates around it. We had a feeling, but today we have like a validation that it's actually here. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (24:55):
Yeah. Good. Exciting. Yeah. I'm kind of curious right. New product launches rarely go completely as planned. And I'm just kind of curious, was there any things that you found during the beta phase that you've, you've, you've fixed and now as as part of the product that you launched today?
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (25:14):
There are several points that I would want to improve, obviously. I think it's just small tweaks. For example in Israel or in other, like in Europe, you, you rarely call animals that are pregnant. And so here if the pregnancy is low, you don't necessarily want to keep those animals. So it was kind of a, a change that we did not have in our first version and we'll have soon, but it's something like that that we need to add up or things that are a bit different when you come up with that to the farmer, even it's from the better to the actual launch, but you still don't have it. Mm-Hmm
Scott Sorrell (26:35):
Good. Kind of a similar question for Shane and Emily. So, you know, we've got a lot of technology, we're measuring a lot of things. What do you wish you could measure today that, that you're not, what's, what's the next measurements that you want?
Shane St. Cyr (26:50):
So I'm fascinated by ai. Yeah. So there, you know, we have a lot of information on weather patterns. We have this information on markets and is there, you know, a way to build a tool out there to help me make decisions on contracting milk or contracting feed inputs based on, hey, you know, this is the weather pattern we're seeing, this is what happened the last time we had that weather pattern. Here's where corn and soy is today. Here's what's going on in Brazil. You know, it'd be neat to have a, an easy button for that. Yeah, yeah. To help make those decisions.
Scott Sorrell (27:29):
Yeah. So it's not about measuring more, it's about let's let's synthesize the, the measurements that we have. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Emily, what are your thoughts?
Emily Starceski (27:36):
I don't, I think a lot about people and like the employees that we have on the farm. And when I originally started with AFI at our new site, I was able to utilize some of that data to decide what I needed to talk to about each shift, each milking shift, who was, who was doing really well in this area, who needed some help in this area. And I'd like to see more of that on a platform of, hey, first shift, they're taking a little bit longer to attach, or they have more kickoffs, but second shift they might need to focus on getting the cows through a little bit faster. And I'd like to see using more of the farm technology that we have to help manage your people.
Scott Sorrell (28:11):
Ah, that's a great, yeah.
Shane St. Cyr (28:12):
The, the information's all there.
Scott Sorrell (28:14):
Yeah.
Shane St. Cyr (28:15):
You know, it's, it's drawing it out or creating, creating some reports for that can easily notify us of, of what it's, of what the information's telling us.
Scott Sorrell (28:25):
Yeah. Makes sense. Makes sense. Shane, you
Walt Cooley (28:27):
Talked a little bit about the need to know versus the need to know. I, I, I want the, the audience to be able to hear you say this. 'cause I think that's really useful. The dairy producers I talk to think in that way, the need to know versus the neat to know.
Shane St. Cyr (28:43):
Yeah. I think we're talking about what there is out there for information and, and there's so much information out there, whether it's from cow monitors or, you know, programs out there that, that, you know, the information and the pieces of information we have are endless. And what I, what I call need to know information is information that's actionable. What can, if we can take this and it tells us something that we can change to improve, that's need to know, need to know is information that you can't necessarily affect the outcome of that. You know, one example we have is when we enter freshening, we record the time of day of, of every freshening on the farm. I'd like that to be neat to know to today, it's neat to know information. We can go back and, oh, she caved at 3:00 AM you know, we're recording that. Maybe someday it'll help us learn something or, or we'll be able to pick out a pattern that we can improve. But today that's neat to know. Information
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (29:44):
You, it gives me so many ideas for the next innovation for a milk, I need to write it down. That's good. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (29:53):
Veronica, any big topics that we we missed that you presented yesterday?
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (29:58):
Yeah. Shane reminded me that without machine learning, we wouldn't be here. I kind of, you know, missed that huge point. Because they, we have the algorithm from the color, but it always, always goes to our software or to cloud, to the cloud. And there we have a lot of information about the animals lactation days in milk and so on. So many parameters that machine learning picks up and uses it to calibrate the data. So it's not only color, we always need like this new amazing AI that we've got. Yeah. So, yeah.
Shane St. Cyr (30:33):
Interesting. And that's what's been neat about this program and software is the improvements are software, not hardware. So yeah, they didn't come to us and say, okay, new system, you gotta replace all your callers. . They said, no, it's just a software update. We can do it on the backend. We can grab the information from your existing callers and and improve the information we're giving to you.
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (30:54):
Yeah. It's, it's something that we talked about yesterday. Like I you guys have the AFI labs and we are working, it's in the research, but still a little bit about the pregnancy checks within the AFI lab with the milk analyzer, which is mind blowing. So again, we work on the hardware we already have and try to come up with new ideas and new users with that. Yeah. That's our goal. This capability, really you need high, high touch with the farmer. It's not like you give this to the farmer and and that's it. And you leave the room, never come back. No. You need some meetings, some talks. And we're still improving and working on some onboarding sessions and plans because like every new information you need to see how it comes up to your routines, how you're gonna work with that. You never worked with that before and what is like the value of bringing that? It's, it's not so easy to move one Yeah. Person from it's like comfortable place. You need a very good reason to do so. Yeah. So, yeah,
Shane St. Cyr (32:04):
Veronica brings up a really good point that none of these technologies have worked with a lot of technologies and oftentimes you know, there used to be, oh, a late night guy selling stuff on online and he would say, set it and forget it. You know, I forget the name of it, but Ron set and forget it. These are not set it and forget it. Right. It, it's transitioning your management and somebody needs to be you know, I used to say some who's the guru? Somebody on your operation needs to be the guru responsible for that, you know, and the, the technology is amazing and great, but it's not successful without Emily on, on, on the farm implementing it, making sure it's tight management for that technology. Yeah.
Emily Starceski (32:48):
And something to add to that is the person managing it needs to have a good relationship with whoever's providing it. Like I can ask Veronica, I can ask me any question that I have and they can come back with me for a solution or help me go through things. So you need to have a good relationship with who you're getting your product from too, for it to succeed.
Scott Sorrell (33:05):
Yeah. Yeah. Good comments.
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (33:08):
Another like successful point for that is that we make sure our farms are great in heat detection, ration eating, health detection, everything is set. And then we bring in the feed because it's, it's a wonderful add up to a brilliant, brilliantly working farm, successful farm already doing great. And we want to add up to their net profit, to their, you know, management and so on, not just, you know, not for struggling. Then we need to address other things, obviously. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (33:42):
Walt, anything else you'd like to ask?
Walt Cooley (33:43):
Yeah, I have a question for each of our guests. My question is what is the one thing when you, for the farmers, when you walk around your dairy, was that one thing you wonder, like, I wonder if this is working, or I wonder if we should change this. And maybe for Veronica, as you've heard some of the producer feedback on your technology, you're, you're wondering, I wonder if we could do this with the technology in the future. So that, that's my question to each of you.
Shane St. Cyr (34:10):
So I think my wonder if goes back to ai, right? And what I wonder if we can combine all this information you know, Veronica mentioned about machine learning. So, you know, NEFAs are already working on that. And I, I guess I liken all this technology to probably early on in tractors and equipment, they all used to have their own way of hooking to the back of a tractor years ago, right? And then we went to the three point hitch and, and the hydraulics and everybody matches up. Now, could we get that to that spot with information and technology so that everybody matches up and that we can easily use all that information to garner decision, decision making tools to help us manage our farms?
Scott Sorrell (34:57):
Yeah.
Emily Starceski (34:59):
So I think that my role consists of a lot of wonder ifs and I think a lot of different people that come to the farm bring a lot of wonder ifs. And I think what it all comes down to is like, I wonder, I wonder what I can do more to just let a cow be a cow, and I wonder, I wonder how I can have people in the pens less and how I can do more in sort pens. And I wonder about that type of efficiency and what it does for our employees. And what also is doing for the cows of just being, being minimal with them, letting them do what they know what to do.
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (35:31):
So one of the wonder if that I, like I heard from my farmers is, okay, I added this additive that someone has said, sold to me, I wonder if it works. So one of our farmers asked me like, can you show me the incomer feed for this second lactation? The third lactation? Did it help? And then we showed them it increased and then decreased and so on. So it, it's not currently in, in our software, but it's something that I've been asked a lot. So I guess it will be there soon. Because it, it's interesting, like I added something, how did it work? How did it affect my animals? So yeah. Thank
Walt Cooley (36:11):
You. Thank you all.
Scott Sorrell (36:12):
Yeah, very well. You know, as we get ready to close down here, what I'd like to do is ask each of you to just kind of, if there's anything on your mind that you'd like to share with the audience.
Commercial (36:22):
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Shane St. Cyr (36:49):
You know, I think there's a lot of uncertainty right now, but I'm excited about the dairy industry. I always have been. Yeah. And I, I am excited about where it's headed and, and I think it's important for us to tell our story and, and let the public know, know that, you know, cows aren't the problem. We're, we're, we can be the solution though, right? And, and you know, creating energy and a good food source and, and there was a speaker yesterday that said, you know, milk is, is really the protein that's going to feed the world as, as the population expands. So I think that's what I would, I would share is make sure you go out and, and tell your story in a positive way and, and that, that we're the, we're the solution and we can help and, and we're all on board with, with sustainability and carbon neutrality in the dairy industry.
Scott Sorrell (37:40):
Yeah. Yeah. Great comments, Walt, anything you'd like to share? Oh,
Walt Cooley (37:44):
It's been awesome to talk to some farmers today as well as AFI and their technology stack. I like how you described it, Veronica, about the stack. Like you can start with activity monitoring, then you put the rumination on and now you know, there's another level you can go to on your farm if you have mastered all those other things. So that's really exciting.
Scott Sorrell (38:03):
Yeah. Emily,
Emily Starceski (38:05):
I guess something that I'm passionate about that we didn't talk about is probably like dairy farm internships and stuff like that. I think farms need to do a little bit of a better job of getting new people out there because we need to show students and people in school or people outta high school that dairy farming is a, is a business and there's a lot that you can do within it with cows being in the industry and farms need to do a better job of getting, getting students out there and showing them, showing them what dairy farming's about. Yeah. And we need to get students to farms, get 'em dirty and show 'em what the
Scott Sorrell (38:38):
Industry's about. Yeah. Awesome comments, Veronica, a few last words. Also let us know if somebody's interested in this technology. What's the best way to find out more?
Dr. Veronica Shabtai (38:48):
Okay, so I'll start with some things I think I saw I've in our future, I guess. So we started with the, some application with cuing and breeding and so on, but we have a lot on our minds going forward with the feed efficiency offering. We have some farmers thinking about like grouping animals by high and low efficiency instead of yield. We have some farmers al already drying off a cows by income of a feed if they, it's worse or not drying them off. And when, so I seen that progressing in, in the next year or so. And, you know, we'll be in a different spot in a year. And I want to thank our partners in the universities obviously, and also the farmers that we work with that we couldn't have done that without them for sure. Okay. So we have a, our us a site, a milk site where you can find you can leave your details and we'll come back to you. So I think this is the best way.
Scott Sorrell (39:57):
Alright, great. Well thank you for that. This has been enjoyable. Walt. Thank you for joining us, Veronica. Thank you so much. Good luck to you. I don't think you'll need it 'cause this, this sounds like an exciting product. Shane and Emily, you guys are great ambassadors for the industry. I, I've loved the conversation today, so I want to thank you for joining us. It's been awesome. Appreciate it. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Yeah. And to our loyal listeners as always, thanks for coming along with us on another little trip here. We hope you learned something. We hope you had some fun and we hope to see you next time here through Real Science Exchange where it's always happy hour and you're always among friends.
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