Analysis of herd manager daily routines and interrelations with production and health and economic key figures of dairy farms—A case study

Work organization is of paramount importance when it comes to creating efficient workflows to achieve high productivity in a complex operation such as a dairy farm. The person responsible for this task in mid- to large-scale dairy farms is the herd manager. We hypothesized a positive relationship between the invested hours of labor in herd management, the extent of controlling activity of herd managers, and the production and health status of the herd, as well as economic traits. A case study was conducted on 10 farms located in the state of Brandenburg with an average size of 592 German Holstein cows (229-1,221), an average milk production of 9,690 kg of marketed milk per cow and year, and 32.9% culling rate. In each farm, the person responsible for herd management was followed throughout a 3-wk period (mean: 13 d; 11-15, minimum-maximum [min-max]) by a project employee. Activities were continuously documented on a minute basis. An average of 954 entries (=documented activity, 537-1,326; min-max) and a total of 109 h (86-134 h) were recorded per farm and assigned to 13 categories during data processing. Herd data included key figures in the following areas: production level (kilogram of marketed milk per cow and year), milk quality (bulk tank and test-day data), stillbirth rates, and culling (culling and mortality rates). The herd managers invested 4% (1%-9%, min-max) in administration, office, and management, 17% (9%-23%) in communication, 11% (3%-19%) in animal documentation, 17% (11%-28%) in animal organization and movement, 9% (4%-16%) in animal controls, 9% (2%-16%) in animal treatment and health measures, 1% (0%-3%) in feeding, 12% (4%-29%) in accompanying of external service providers (e.g., veterinary, hoof trimmer, inseminator), 5% (1%-11%) in assistance of employees, 5% (0%-30%) in shift takeover from employees, 5% (0%-9%) in process controlling, 2% (1%-5%) in other activities, and 3% (0%-11%) of the time was not assigned/not recorded. The 5 farms where herd managers invested more than average time in animal and process controlling (animal health, feeding, and other, ≥14%) lower SCC (288 thousand cells/mL vs. 205), and showed more favorable culling and replacement figures with a numerically lower culling rate (35.3% vs. 30.4%), interrelating with a higher amount of cow calvings (65.8% vs. 73.2%) and a higher lifetime production (30,400 kg vs. 36,698 kg), a lower mortality rate (9.7% vs. 5.9%), as well as less losses during the rearing period until 3 mo of age (3.5% vs. 8.3%). We concluded that a large heterogeneity between farms in the activities of their herd managers exists, and herd managers who spent more time in controlling to achieve better results concerning the health and longevity of their herd. The developed protocols and analysis routines should be applied in future studies, including a larger number of farms, and are a valuable toolbox for problem analysis and consultancy in practice.