World Dairy Expo: Datamars offers technology platform Connecterra helps consolidate data, drive efficiency for producers
Datamars is focused on innovation that will bring efficiency to the dairy
19 January 2026
4 minute read
By: Chris Roeder, Director of Smart Farming at Datamars, was recently interviewed by Sarah Mikesell in the Datamars’ booth at World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
What is Datamars offering US dairy producers?
The primary focus of our business right now is on our active tag, which is our activity monitoring system for heat health and group activity in dairy cows. We are proud to add the Pulse Needleless Injector to our portfolio. It's a unique injector system that replaces the old traditional needle. It helps reduce the chance of bovine leukosis virus (BLV) spreading when producers give their reproductive management vaccines. The other thing that it does is it makes labor more efficient. It helps ensure accurate doses of the vaccines and reproduction products go into the herd.
There are so many things that we're working on. We've now got our Walk Over Weighing (WOW) systems. Dairies that are looking at monitoring weight from their cattle to help monitor and get the most from their heifer rearing programs are using these systems. Dairies looking at the energy status of their adult cattle are starting to look at our WOW system, our WOW system for helping with the management of their adult cattle.
We’re also excited about our sort gate that’s coming out soon. A key benefit of our sort gate is that it has an extremely high sort rate. We're currently getting sorts well up into the high 90’s with our sort gate. Its secret is the technology, our active ear tag that is used for the animal ID. With other sort gates that operate on EID, you get EID interference that impacts sort performance. The technology in our active tag is not impacted by interference. This allows us to get a high sort rate. You can get that high sort rate with both the ear tag and a collar.
Finally, we've also brought into the Datamars portfolio our Connecterra. Whenever we go to dairy conferences on technology, one of the primary complaints from dairy producers is with all the technology they are adopting, their data is in different places. With our Connecterra system, we pull data together in one spot from the herd management system, feed system, the sensor system, the milk processor, DHI and any other data that the dairy is getting. We're pulling all into one place to help with the big need that dairy producers have. As you can see, Datamars has a lot of good things going on within the industry.
What are some of the technology areas that you're focused on?
Activity monitoring for heat and health is the primary focus here. With our history of Tru-Test Scales, we're now moving into the walk-over weighing system. We're making weighing of heifers easy and simple. With our walk-over weighing system for adult cattle, we're helping in areas of feed efficiency and reproductive management. That data can be used in quite a few different areas.
With the Pulse Needleless System disease management and beef quality assurance, we're addressing some of the needs that are helping the dairy industry reduce the number of needles that are being used.
Datamars is pulling all that data together for people to make it usable?
It is. Again, with all the technology, it means there's more data. Right now, historically, none of these systems interact with each other. Your feed is in one area; your herd management is in another area. Then you have your parlor software with Connecterra, we're pulling it all into one place, which then allows the dairy producer, instead of pulling data into an Excel spreadsheet and commingling it in an Excel spreadsheet. It's all done in one place.
What would you say to producers who are on the fence about adopting technology and how can Datamars help get them over that hump?
Instead of only looking at the upfront cost, dairy producers need to focus on overall value and the different things that they can do such as improve reproduction and make labor more efficient. It’s just letting cows be cows. It helps reduce lock-up time and that should have some impact on the marginal milk that a cow produces. There's a lot of value that these technologies bring and it's not from a single source. It is usually a stream of benefits, but the biggest thing is helping your employees adopt the technology. This is where our business is really trying to shine. We're trying to put together a field team to be the most customer friendly. We are really trying to focus on the user experience, whether it be getting the most out of the systems or educating the farm employees.
What can producers expect to see and learn from Datamars in the coming months and years?
We're not a company that just has an activity monitor. We're looking at other technologies and the melding of technologies. With the power of Connecterra pulling all this information together, we're going to start moving up the traditional Gartner chart from just providing static data, descriptive data, to trying to help the dairies make better, quicker decisions daily.
How important is data in decision making?
There's an old cliche or pyramid. When I first started working with data, at the bottom of the pyramid you had data, then you had information, knowledge, and at the top of the pyramid, you had wisdom. What we're really trying to do is to help pull all this data together and to try to help, not just provide more data and inundating the dairy with more data. We're really trying to help provide those insights and streamline decision making.
Sarah Mikesell
Sarah Mikesell grew up on a five-generation family farming operation in Ohio, USA, where her family still farms. She feels extraordinarily lucky to get to do what she loves - write about livestock and crop agriculture. You can find her on LinkedIn.
