The Limousin breeder wants to take the quality of his livestock to an even higher level. He is therefore willing to invest in straws from top bulls. “When you use expensive straws, accurate heat detection is all the more important,” he reminds us. For a quick genetic improvement, Ravet is especially focused on the young stock. Of the 60 Neck tags he has, 40 tags are used for young stock. The Smarttag Neck is fitted immediately after calving. The neck tags stay on until the cows go outdoors in March. A bull accompanies them for natural coverage of the animals that might come open. “That way I can be certain all the animals will have a calf during the winter.”

Nedap COWControl™ is good for peace of mind

Ravet’s aim, however, is to limit the calving period to September and October. Then the insemination season begins in December. That is the busiest time of year for the French beef cattle breeder, who is also involved with various organisations. Many meetings are held in the months of December, January and February, when he is busy with the insemination season.

“The fact that I can rely on Nedap Heat Detection during the peak period makes a real difference for me,” he concludes. “I don’t have to spend time in the barn looking for cows that are in heat, which saves a lot of time. And I have the assurance that when animals come into heat it doesn’t go unnoticed. That’s good for my peace of mind.”

The system is simple and easy to use, he says. “I check the box by the cowshed three times a day to see if a red light is flashing; that means there is a warning. And in the house I check the tablet regularly too,” Menut says. He has arranged the animals in four groups in the system: Limousin, Limousin heifers, Montbéliarde and Montbéliarde heifers.

Ravet finds the Nedap Health Monitoring function useful for keeping tabs on the health of his livestock. “I’ve already had a few incidents in which I was able to address a respiratory infection early on thanks to an alert from the system,” he tells. “Stopping eating is a really good indicator of respiratory tract infections. That holds true both for the Limousins and the Montbéliardes.” Ravet now also has ten Smarttag Neck collars in use for his dairy cattle. He puts them on cows with fertility problems. On average, the cows are first inseminated 70 days after calving. At 374 days, the calving interval is already very good.

The combined beef cattle and crop farm in Gigny-sur-Saône in Burgundy has been owned by the Ravet family for generations. They have a total of 300 hectares. Jean Michel’s brother Bernard Ravet and cousin Jérôme Ravet focus on the 185 hectares used for crop farming. They mainly grow corn, grain, soy beans, sunflowers and mustard seed. The remaining 115 acres is pasture.

Jean Michel Ravet is responsible for the cattle production. This includes both the dairy cattle (53 Montbéliardes plus 20 young stock) and beef cattle (70 Limousin cows with 70 calves). The Limousins graze in the pasture during the summer, where they eat exclusively grass. The cows are divided into two groups: mothers with heifer calves and mothers with bull calves. During the calving period (September/October) the animals are free to choose whether they go indoors or stay in the pasture. In November, however, they all go in the barn. During the winter they get 14 kg of hay along with 1 kg grain, 70 grams protein and 100 grams of minerals.

The Montbéliardes’ ration consists of maize, grass silage, alfalfa silage and concentrates, supplemented with minerals. Milked twice a day, they give an average of 8,500 kg milk, with 3.89% fat and 3.51% protein. In France, each cow’s milk is sampled for the MPR. Therefore the 2×6 herringbone is equipped with milk measurement based on ISO identification; this is done via the ear tag.