BACKGROUND Pressure on labour and the need to meet performance criteria and make a living, have encouraged one Herefordshire-based dairy farmer to grab technology by the horns. So much so that Phil Brooke of Nicholson Farm in Leominster has upgraded to the latest activity monitoring system and invested in robotic milking. During the past few years, Phil, a fourth-generation farmer, has replaced the 75-hectare dairy farm's sheds and parlour with new housing and cubicles for the 140-cow Holstein herd. As part of the new set-up, he added three robotic milkers in 2015 and in July 2017 he replaced his eight-year- old Allflex Heatime TM with the next generation SenseHub solution and cSense Flex neck tags. “The move from Heatime to SenseHub has been a massive leap,” says Phil. CHALLE

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