Elizabeth Elsinger

“Our pregnancy rate is now shooting for 30% in just the last two and a half years.”

Elizabeth Elsinger, together with her parents, Dale and Dee Gaul, and her husband, Andrew, runs a dairy in Peosta, Iowa. Now in its third generation, the family business – D Gaul Farms – milks approximately 600 cows. As the farm’s main herdsman, Elizabeth Elsinger oversees most aspects of cow and parlor management, working closely with her employees.

In November 2022, the family began using the smaXtec health management system – and everything changed from that point forward: “It has been an amazing, I can say, partner because it’s changed the way we manage our dairy. Our pregnancy rate – it’s now shooting for 30% in just the last two and a half years, so it’s been an amazing tool. The first thing I check in the morning when I get up is my smaXtec app,” says Elizabeth.

Lower Treatment Costs and Better Outcomes

At D Gaul Farms, smaXtec’s ability to support early disease detection has been a real game changer. With an aging Jersey herd, health challenges like milk fever are an ongoing concern, as Elizabeth explains: “smaXtec has been a huge help in indicating which cows might need that second or third calcium bolus before they go down and become an actual problem for us.”

The technology has also had a clear impact on mastitis treatment: “For Mastitis it has been super helpful. We’ve actually gone down from buying four or five buckets of lactating cow treatment to two and we treat almost no cows with antibiotics.”

Significant Reproduction Improvements

According to Elizabeth Elsinger, smaXtec “has completely changed the way we manage our repro system on the farm.” She explains: “We used to start a 60-day off-sync on every cow in the herd. And now that we have smaXtec, I can see those early heats come in at about 21 to 30 days. It’s reduced the amount of time I spend finding cows, and I can just go and breed the cows that I know are in heat. We’ve also reduced the amount of services per conception from three down to two – and we’re actually trending more down to one and a half. So, that’s been great cost savings.”

“I don’t know how I farmed before I had smaXtec”

In conclusion, Elizabeth highlights the significant value smaXtec has brought to her, her employees, and her family: “This has changed the way I manage cows. It’s changed the way I look at our dairy and it’s changed the way I look at how a cow operates and lives in its environment. I would recommend smaXtec to every dairy farmer. I don’t know how I farmed before I had smaXtec.”