Farm Results
What happens when you stop guessing heat detection.
Numbers from dairy farms running Ovum across Victoria. Measured against each farm's own six-month pre-Ovum baseline.
What the Numbers Mean
Three metrics, in plain dollar terms
Conception rate, calving interval, and missed heats are the three levers that control the economics of a dairy breeding programme.
Visual Data
Conception rate: before and after Ovum
Case Studies
From two farms running Ovum in Victoria
The challenge: Jake Moorfield had been running visual heat detection on three paddock rotations. His conception rate had sat at 52% for two seasons. Night checks were costing his team 4-6 hours per week with no reliable improvement in missed heats.
What changed: Ovum connected to the activity collar system already fitted to 280 of Jake's cows. The remaining 100 were entered manually using observation records from the previous 12 months. Within the first 60-day calibration period, 240 cows had enough cycle history for active predictions.
Six months later: Conception rate moved from 52% to 68%. Services per conception dropped from 3.6 to 2.3. Night paddock checks have been eliminated. Jake now acts on the alert, not the guess.
The challenge: Denise Hatherway operates the farm with her partner and one part-time worker. With a small team, no missed heat detection check could be done before 7am. The farm was missing heats that occurred in the pre-dawn window, a consistent blind spot for small operations.
What changed: Ovum's SMS alert channel meant Denise received breeding window notifications on her phone overnight. She could triage which cows needed morning action before walking out of the house. The per-cow cycle model also identified three cows with highly irregular cycles that had been silently dragging down the herd's conception average.
Four months later: Conception rate up from 49% to 65%. Three irregular-cycle cows identified and managed separately. Denise estimates the calving interval has shortened by 7-8 days across the herd.
Methodology
How we measure these results
Results on this page are measured against each farm's own six-month pre-Ovum baseline period, using the same collars and the same management team. We do not compare to industry averages or published benchmarks, because farm conditions differ too widely for that to be meaningful.
Conception rate is calculated as confirmed pregnancies divided by total A.I. services during the measurement period. Calving interval is the average days from one calving to the next for the same cow, compared between the 6-month pre-Ovum and post-Ovum periods. Missed heat reduction is estimated from the ratio of expected cycles (based on cycle length history) to observed heat events.
Results will vary by farm. Factors that influence outcomes include herd health status, body condition score at mating, bull fertility where used, A.I. technician timing relative to Ovum alerts, and the completeness of collar coverage. We report what we observe, not what we project.
The model gets sharper with each cycle recorded. Early results (months 1-3) will typically be lower than results at months 4-6 as calibration completes for more cows.
See what Ovum could do for your herd
Start your 14-day free trial and see conception rate data from your own cows within the first month.