Precision Dairy Farming Series: Farmers' learnings on how to get the most from wearable tech | Ep. 5

Recorded live at the 2025 Precision Dairy Farming Conference in Ōtautahi Christchurch, this episode features vet Kirsty Ashcroft from Anexa, who led a farmer panel sharing their experiences with wearable technology.  

Kirsty highlights the importance of starting with the basics in the first season, avoiding alert fatigue, and working closely with vets to turn data into earlier identification, better decisions, and stronger animal health outcomes.  

Kirsty also explains why successful adoption isn’t about the device itself, but about how you use it, who supports you, and how well the data fits your farm’s needs. 

View the conference highlights, proceedings and more  

Did you know? 

Since this episode was recorded, DairyNZ has begun a three-year research programme on cow wearables, shaped by farmers, to help turn data into practical insights. The work focuses on benchmarking, understanding normal behaviour, improving key decisions at calving and mating, identifying resilient cows, and exploring how wearables can support pasture management — all aimed at helping farmers get more value from their investment. You can read more about this in the Feb-April 2026 Inside Dairy.  

Have feedback or ideas for future episodes? Email us at talkingdairy@dairynz.co.nz

Connect with DairyNZ

Stay up to date with advice, latest research, tools and resources. Read, browse, scroll, listen, or be there in person. Visit dairynz.co.nz/get-connected 

Transcript

Why A Farmer Panel On Wearables

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Talking Dairy. I'm your host Jack McGowan. This episode is part of a special series recorded at the 2025 Precision Dairy Farming Conference in Auto Tahi Christchurch. I'm with Kirst Ashcroft from Annexa Veterinary Services. Kirsty pulled together a farmer panel where farmers who are already using wearable technologies shared their real experiences with other farmers who are considering that investment. Thank you for joining us, Kirsty. Thank you very much for having me. Cheers. Okay, let's jump into it. What inspired Annexa to run this farmer panel specifically about wearable technology? We saw the gap relent.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

There's a lot of groups and salespeople out there trying to get people to buy it, but I really felt that we could kind of come from an impartial third party and we know our farmers very well already. So I'm hoping that they see us as a trusted place. We saw that as a good opportunity of how to get some of our early adopter farmers to be able to share some of their learnings with the prospective maybe wereable farmers.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

You played the role of a facilitator. So how many farmers did you have on the panel and what kind of farmers came along?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

We had about probably about eight, and I'm doing the disservice if it there was nine, but never eight. And we had a whole range there from share milkers to owner operators to sort of almost corporate level with multiple sheds, and every single one of them was using it in a slightly different way. And it was really fascinating. I learned as much from them as I hopefully everyone else did in terms of the little sort of nuances of how they were using that.

Tech Used And Audience Interest

SPEAKER_00 1:37

They had a a range of technologies amongst them that they were using?

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Yeah. Our panel were all early adopters, so some of them had the technology on for five years, which in the grand scheme of things is a long time when it comes to the wearables. Everything from Halter to Cow Manager to the less common ones that we're seeing and new to the market as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Okay, and how many farmers came along to hear this?

Farmers Vs Vets: Motivation Gap

SPEAKER_01 2:00

It was over 100, which was a little bit daunting. Yeah, it was because lots of people were asking the questions that every time I was on farm, though, hey Kirsi, what do you think of insert wearable brand here? And I was like, if people are asking me, the ones I don't see are still going to be asking the same questions, kind of thing. So yeah, we thought it was a an awesome opportunity to do a bit of sort of shared learning and who doesn't love a free dinner.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

You told me before that you ran a run through with some colleagues to sort of test how the day went. And you also recorded the questions that they were asking.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

My guinea pig colleagues, bless them, they didn't know I was doing this at the time. But when I ran through a practice run of the day for the farmers, I asked the vets the same questions from that farmer perspective, which was, What is yours? or a farmer's main motivation for putting on a wearable technology. And what was really fascinating, I kind of grouped together those responses from the farmers and from the vets and kind of compared them. And that's what I'm talking about tomorrow is that there's a big mismatch there. Farmers overwhelmingly had cited animal health as their number one, whereas vets they'd acknowledge that as something. But of course, and you can totally see why animal health is that's their their baby, you know. That's their job. There were things that we agreed on, repro uh or heat detection being a major one. But yeah, it was very fascinating and and quite eye-opening, really, that there was such a difference in motivation there. And quite a lot of what I've done since has been based off that.

Matching Tools To Farm Goals

SPEAKER_00 3:28

So it was surprising for at least some of the vets to hear those farmers say that one of their motivations or the leading motivation for adopting the technology was animal health. Yeah. Is animal health what they end up using the technology for, or does it end up being something different?

Start Simple Then Go Deeper

What Drives Successful Adoption

SPEAKER_01 3:45

I think it very much depends on what the reason someone's put a wearable on in the first place. And I guess to take one of the learnings from that discussion panel is before getting a wearable, like deciding what your your either your problem or your aspiration is on farm, and realistically, how can a wearable help that? For example, when the pasture management is a major issue, getting one of the wearables that doesn't have that, maybe that's not the not the thing, and vice versa. Why get something with pasture management if you've got that spot on, but maybe you need a bit of help with heat detection or something. I think, yeah, going back, it it does kind of depend on what their main motivator was in the first place. What has been interesting though, and again, that was one of the questions that we we spoke to our panel about, was sort of the surprising things that they've found has come from it, that perhaps they had got it for heat detection, but actually they've suddenly realized that they can use it for early in mating to sort of see how they're tracking with their submission and it's early alarm bells. And I guess that first season through, that was something that they again a sort of theme that kind of came from it is that that first season just stick to the basics, and then once you've really got the hang of it, adding in the more kind of complexities, and that's when kind of having those using it as part of either a repro review or even a milk quality consult, that can be a really, really cool bits of data that we we find in there and got some really cool outcomes with that.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Have you noticed differences in successful or unsuccessful adoption? Like, what are the factors that separate farmers that like really do well with their technology versus others that might struggle a little bit more?

SPEAKER_01 5:19

I'm gonna use my analogy that I use in my presentation here. That a wearable is a little bit like a gym membership. And if you don't put the work in, you're not gonna get fit. And I think that's the the sort of key thing is that these wearables, they're a tool and not necessarily a solution. And so having someone to help kind of go through that data and really utilize it to its best extent is is is really important. And I guess as a little plug here, um I think that's where you vet really can come in. We're veterinary scientists at the end of the day. Our whole job is getting science, getting the data and transforming that into something sort of really usable and practical on farm. And certainly that's if I could do that right, I feel like I'm doing my job properly. Yeah, I think that self-awareness of going, hey, actually, I don't know how to use this to the its best, well, its full potential here. That's really awesome that if people can do that, because then we can we can help. Yeah, definitely it's how how it's being used is the is the main thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

And whether it was a problem that you could realistically solve with it in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

What's an example of how you as a vet could help a farmer who's not perhaps getting the best out of their technology yet?

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Something that's made me my heart break is that I I've been on farm and I'm I'm very um interested in in what the wearables are doing and they are seeing a sick cow or something. I don't know how how's the are the wearables working for you? What did a health alert say? And they're like, I don't know, I switched them off, it was annoying me. And um my heart breaks. That's a huge investment that people are using and not utilising it properly. And that false positive thing I feel like can be really, really frustrating. And I feel like I've almost failed in my job there by not sort of helping come up with a solution for that. So in those particular scenarios, we've sat down and gone through using that sort of farm specific, like we know what the common problems are on that farm, we know what the common treatments are, and maybe making a sort of triage plan so people are able to they don't have to call the vet for every sick cow and they don't have to ignore every health alert. They can just they can triage it themselves a little bit better. And and if it they're really, really bad, let's talk to the companies and maybe change that level slightly.

Proactive Vet Partnership

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Nice, nice. Yeah. Okay, what's the key message that you hope farmers will take away from your talk tomorrow or from listening to you now?

SPEAKER_01 7:32

For the farmers, uh a little bit of a plug here, but yeah, use your friendly local vet to help you make the most out of that. Going back to my analogy there with being a PT, like truly that's what we're wanting at the end of the day, um, is sort of that treat at the very cause. Because again, some of these wearables can be used in early identification. And I think like early identification, you get your less production losses, and that leads to sort of better welfare and more efficiency on farm and everything. But let's let's try and get it that they don't even get to the the subclinical stage, sort of really treat at the that top of the cliff before anything even goes over, kind of thing. And yeah, use your vet. We love them. We love it. Uh we love that data.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah, so it sounds like a real opportunity there for farmers to move the way they work with their vet away from, you know, being an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff more to like preventative, you know, because that data allows the vet to work in that space.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

That sort of perception that no one's gonna argue that my job's a a lame a gnarly lame cow or sort of rotten carving, headback calving, something like that. That smells like a vet job, you know, that sort of scenario. Yeah. And we do all that, but so much of the work that I find really, really, really rewarding is actually having those um sort of almost system farm system conversations and really kind of you I think it you can get a better result for everyone in terms of animal welfare, efficiency, productivity by sort of foreseeing and preventing some of these issues in the first place.

Closing And DairyNZ Resources

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Brilliant. Well, thank you very much, Kirsty, for sharing what you heard from the pharma panel. The key takeaway is that successful wearable adoption isn't just about buying the technology, it's about having, as you said, clear goals and getting some support with it, being willing to invest time in learning how to interpret and act on the data, and vets can play a crucial role in that. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Matiwa. If you'd like to get connected with DariNZ's latest advice, research, tools, and resources, whether it's reading, scrolling, listening, or in person, you can visit dairynz.co.nz forward slash get-connected, and don't forget to hit follow to keep up to date with our latest episodes. As always, if you have any feedback on this podcast or have some ideas for future topics or guests, please email us at talkingdairy at dairynz.co.nz. Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you next time on Talking Dairy.