Jason Kline

“It’s like having eyes on each of your cows on a full-time basis.”

For Jason Kline, a dairy farmer who operates Klinedell Farms in Myerstown, PA, monitoring the health and well-being of each animal is paramount to the success of his operation, as well as the health and safety of the entire herd. Thus, he installed the smaXtec health system on his farm with 190 dairy cows in September 2022. “I had been looking at various activity monitors to help us in monitoring our herd, and smaXtec stood out. I really like the fact that it’s placed inside the cow. The heat detection component is so helpful, as are the calving alerts and rumination monitoring. It’s like having eyes on each of your cows on a full-time basis.” Kline says.

Always being informed of every single cow

The temperature monitoring is the heart of the smaXtec health system. When a cow’s temperature deviates from normal, the producer (or their employee) will get a temperature alert when her temperature went up or down significantly. Jason Kline is pleased by the accurate alerts: “The smaXtec technology sends notifications to myself and my employees’ phones to provide alerts so we know what is going on with each animal – whether they are in heat, calving or have other health-related concerns. It allows us to be informed of the status of each animal.”Temperature is the first indicator of an infection. Temperature alerts are often sent 3-4 days before any clinical signs are visible. In this way, the smaXtec technology allows farmers like Jason Kline to be more efficient finding sick cows early. This allows them to address the issues earlier with less production loss, less expensive treatments and quicker recovery. For farmer Jason Kline this is very helpful, because he knows: “The sooner you catch any problem, the better chances you have of curing the issue,” he says. “It really streamlines the entire process and helps us be aware of any problems with our herd.”