Lactanet’s new Transition Management Index creates one metric that allows dairy farmers to compare the quality of the transition from dry to milking cow across their herd.
Why it matters: The transition period for dairy cows is a make-or-break time when a cow either gets to peak lactation ready to reproduce, or they lag in health, milk production or profitability.
Lactanet is the national dairy organization that manages on-farm milk-related and cow genetic data. It won the Business Services innovation award at Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show 2025.
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Bruna Mion, dairy production expert — nutrition and management, with Lactanet was the project lead for the new Transition Management Index.
She said the index brings together many pieces of data and is created after a cow’s first milk test of their new lactation. Farmers can then have a good idea about which cows are above and below the herd average for the transition management index and can investigate why cows performed as they did.
Lactanet is able to combine milk tests, lactation, energy and genetic information in order to create the index.
“We put all this information together, so we use the power of the data to create a tool that will be accessible for the producers,” said Mion.
Farmers can look for trends in the index. For example, are the negative index cows in lactation one or lactation two? Producers can dig deeper on the information around their transition cows, including looking at energy status, and too many cow are mobilizing more body fat than they should, they can talk to their nutritionist about solving that problem.
“If they have a lot of cows that have a high somatic cell count in the first test, so a problem with udder health, they can discuss with their vets about dry cow protocols or udder health of the fresh period,” said Mion.
The Transition Management Index will launch Oct. 6 in Ontario and in the western provinces, initially for free for Lactanet customers. It was first launched in Quebec.
