Nathan Brearley

In Portland, Michigan, Nathan Brearley runs a dairy with about 800 milking cows. “Our goals here at Brearley Farms are, and have always been, to take care of animals well. And we thought we were doing well – but then we got approached by smaXtec”, he says.

“We’ve been able to improve on almost every metric”

Nathan Brearley decided to give the smaXtec system a try two years ago, and the results took him by surprise: “And I said, I don’t really know what smaXtec can do to help us – we’re pretty much at the top of our game, and I don’t know what other metrics we can improve on. I was surprisingly wrong. We’ve been able to improve on almost every metric that we were at and sometimes even at amounts that I didn’t think were achievable. So it’s been really fun to implement the technology and get that health of our herd to the next level.”

Staying ahead of diseases

For Nathan, the key parameter is internal body temperature – one of the main reasons he chose to invest in the system: “It was the internal temperature monitoring. The rumination was also a key to it, but that internal body temperature, I think, was key to knowing how that animal was feeling and being able to react to all of the different management options that we have.”

Raised pregnancy rate to close to 30%

Since installing the system, Brearley Farms has also seen remarkable improvements in reproduction. “I always ran around a 22% pregnancy rate and it bothered me that we couldn’t get animals pregnant. We tried a lot of different things and since we went on smaXtec we’ve been able to raise our pregnancy rate to close to 30%, and it’s consistently stayed there since,” Nathan Brearley explains.

Relief in everyday life

With smaXtec, Nathan Brearley has found a system that not only improves herd health but also makes his daily routines and collaboration with his employees more efficient. “smaXtec has changed the role on my farm in a positive way. I’ve been able to rely on the information from smaXtec that is given to my employees on a constant basis, and it allows me and my mind space to do other things, to be able to focus on field work or focus on the future. smaXtec has really helped us to, really up our game in animal health,” Nathan states.