Tyddyn Cae Dairy Farm Uses SenseHub Collars for Heat Detection, Saving 147 Hours and Removing Sweeper Bulls

Father and son Tomos and Ifan Ifans milk 400 autumn-calving cows at Tyddyn Cae, near Pwllheli in Gwynedd, and recently set up a second herd of 200 spring calvers on a nearby holding, Farmers Weekly reported in June 2026. Ifan is solely responsible for observing heats, and with two calving blocks to manage, visual checks would have been "too much of a burden on my time," he said. The farm had also cut its calving block from 12 weeks to nine and did not want to lose that progress. As a Farming Connect Our Farms network farm, the Ifanses trialled heat detection collars. In 2025 a base station was installed and 400 SenseHub-Allflex collars were fitted ahead of the autumn breeding season, at a cost of £40,868. Each cow's details and collar number were uploaded to the SenseHub software, and the collars send activity and rumination data at regular intervals through the day via an antenna to the farm computer or smartphone. A peak in activity combined with a drop in rumination indicates a cow is bulling, so heat detection now means checking the computer for alerts and holding back the listed cows for checking and insemination. The study calculated labour savings of £3,675 in the breeding period, or 147 hours at £25 an hour. Because artificial insemination can now be used throughout breeding, sweeper bulls are no longer needed: until 2025 the farm bought three Hereford bulls a year at about £2,500 each, keeping eight as sweepers, and removing them saved £14,060 including maintenance, while 100 extra semen straws added £800. Osian Hughes, the Farming Connect dairy officer who oversaw the trial, said these savings mean the collars will pay for themselves in just over two years. Fertility performance was maintained rather than improved: conception rate was 92% in 2024 with visual checks, 81% in 2025 and 84% after the collars were fitted. Ifan has moved the collars to the spring herd for now and expects to buy a dedicated set for it.