Meet Our Farmers

Real stories from real Tru-Test farmers

Tru-Test by Datamars empowers farmers with precise, real-time animal insights that drive better decisions. By combining solutions like Active Tag and Walk Over Weigh, we deliver connected, data-driven systems that improve animal health, productivity, profitability and sustainability across modern farming operations.

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Case Studies And Farm Resources

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Dairy

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Dairy farmers help shape new research into wearable tech

DairyNZ is working with farmers to turn wearable tech data into meaningful performance insights.

Pentland Park Holsteins | Better Heat & Health Monitoring with Tru-Test

Neil and Ally Dickson farm just over 600 head of milking cows and just over 1000 head of stock on a 1600-hecatre property. They used to have all the data written out on old-fashioned wall sheets or in Neil's head, but Tru-Test has changed all that.

Emu Hill Dairy | Fence Monitoring & Active Tag Collars in Action

Nathan McLean farms across two properties, milking just under 700 cows. He was introduced to Active Tag by his son, who got the collars first, and despite not being a tech-head or into computers, Nathan could see immediately that it was simple enough for him to use and not stuff anything up.

Dairy

Our Farmers

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Coorieridge Farms | Active Tag Collars at Milking Time

Adrian and Vickie Bond milk 550 cows on 1100 acres in Coorimungle, Victoria. It took them three years to decide on the Active Tag Collars, but now they'd never want to farm without them.

Our Farmers

Active Tag Collar

Our Farmers

How wearable tech helped one NZ farmer cut CIDR use and improve mating success

Coming up to his fourth season with them, Louw says the system has gotten better as it has come to know the cows.

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Our Farmers

Active Tag Collar

The why, what and whether or not of wearables

At a Progressing Dairy Event on ‘Wearable data for decisionmaking’ in Waikato last November, farmers shared their experience of the technology.

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Our Farmers

myCOW Podcast (Ep 13): From setbacks to smarter farming

Matt MacDonald farms his family's 74ha Waikato dairy unit at Gordonton, milking about 255 cows at peak, with an 8ha maize block that's part of the system for wintering and keeping cows on track.

Our Farmers

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Our Farmers

Tom Lambie’s 81% 6-week in-calf rate

Tom Lambie is no stranger to performance benchmarks. But this season, his herd has delivered exceptional results – an 81% 6-week in-calf rate and just 5.6% empties thanks to the adoption of Datamars Livestock’s Tru-Test Active Tag Collars and strong veterinary support.

Bespoke Reports

5. Review Reports

An example Review Report

Bespoke Reports

4. Late Mating Reports

Late mating reports are generated weekly towards the end of the mating period. The focus on the report is 'phantom cows' which can be 10% of non-returning cows.

Bespoke Reports

3. Mating Reports

Mating reports are generated weekly throughout the mating period. During the first three weeks, the key focus is achieving a 90% submission rate, a critical target linked to a high 6-week in-calf rate.

Bespoke Reports