Shropshire Farming Talk: Invest and navigate herd performance in 2024
Farmers have an opportunity to invest in the long-term profitability of their herds through milk recording and health testing.
The Cattle Information Service (CIS) has been associated with milk recording since 1903.
Over the years, CIS has increased the service portfolio providing dairy farmers with the information required to measure, monitor and manage their herd by not only looking at the quality of the milk but also assessing the health and fertility of individual animals and the whole herd.
In addition to providing a service to all dairy breeds, CIS are now undertaking health testing for beef breeds and with eradication schemes for BVD and the National Johne's Management plan now in place, these tests provide the data to make informed decisions to improve the health of herds.
Testing is undertaken at the new accredited laboratory in Telford, Shropshire which opened in September.
Investment has seen all testing machines upgraded to new-generation technology with dedicated areas for testing milk samples, blood tests and tissue samples.
The new laboratory now features the most up to date FOSS testing technology to be operating in the UK. There have been four FOSS 7 machines installed with the capacity to process 20,000 milk samples per day.
There has also been investment in our Animal Health department, with additional equipment to increase testing capabilities. Under its robust Quality Management System, this testing facility is UKAS accredited to ISO/IEC 17025:2017 and ICAR approved.
CIS also help farmers monitor and manage herd performance with a range of reports for setting KPIs and benchmarking. CIS offer a number of reports, available from the secure web-based management platform, to help with the management of herds and pinpoint specific trends. Reports are available in digital or print format, with additional copies of the same report, at no charge
To learn more, visit thecis.co.uk
Amanda Wilkes, CIS Area Manager
