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Herd fertility menu
When you use the herd fertility module, the following menu will
be displayed:
Add a cow Access a cow Select a new farm Reports Edit disease file Edit farm information Change date (15.06.90) Return to vet system
The system will load the default farm on start up. The current farm and number of cows will be displayed in a box beside the menu.
Note: If this is the first time you have accessed this option then you will be taken into the initialisation menu. This allows you to set the parameters for a new farm. For further details see 'Start a new farm' later in this guide.
Add a new cow
Add a new cow is option 1 on the herd fertility menu.
When you choose to add a new cow the screen will display a blank
cow record card and Premvet 5 will take you through a series of
prompts to enter the necessary details, as follows:
Cow Name (5 characters)The cow name can be up to 5 characters long and must be unique for the farm. The program will warn you if a cow with the same name already exists.
Lactation number (2 characters)This is the current lactation the cow is on, in the range (1-10). If it is a heifer enter it as a lactation of <0>.
Stage (2 characters)
The stage the cow is currently at. You can enter one of the following stages:
Calving date / TypeEnter the calving date. The type field is 6 characters long and a coding may be entered.
Non-service heat 1 - 3If there was a non-service heat enter accordingly or press <RETURN>. There are also 6 characters for notes.
Service heat 1 - 6 / BullAs above. There is a 6 character field to enter the bull code.
P.D. ResultEnter accordingly <+ or ->.
The system will then ask you if the information is correct. If <Y>es the information is validated and saved on the disk. If there is an error on the record or the validation is invalid the edit codes will appear on the screen. These are 2 character codes that replace the field names.
You will be prompted for the field to edit. Enter accordingly. All the dates must be in a sequential order before you are allowed to continue. When you have finished editing press <RETURN> at the 'field to edit?' prompt and, if validated, the record will be saved.
The system will redisplay the record card with the additional information you have entered:
There are 3 additional fields on the record card and these are :
Code
This is a field in which additional information will be
displayed. If marked or culled this will be inserted by the system.
(Refer to disease events section).
Date of birth
This applies principally to heifers but can be filled
in for cows. It is used to work out the expected serve date.
Additionally it is used to display the age of the animal at calving or
death.
Date last seen
This displays the last date a disease event was added.
Access a cow
To display a cow record card, select Access a cow, option 2 from the Herd fertility menu.
You will be asked to enter the cow name. If the cow exists, the record
will be displayed. Alternatively, you can shortcut by entering the cow name
at the menu prompt - as long as the first character of the name is not a number.
If you are unsure of the cows on file, you may enter an exclamation mark <!> either at the cow name or the menu prompt. This will display all cows on file for the current farm. If the cow name is followed by a letter <D> then the cow has been culled.
Along the bottom line of the record card is displayed the main prompt line:
Back Clin Edit Lact Fwrd Menu Unmark
Back
Display the previous cow.
Clinical
Display any clinical information
pertaining to the cow, allowing you to add additional events.
Edit
This option is used to edit or add additional serves on to the
system.
Fwrd
Forward - Display the next cow on file.
Lact
Lactation - This will display any previous lactation information in
the form of the calving dates, calving interval, the inter-service
intervals and the average inter-service interval for each lactation.
Menu
Return to the main menu.
Unmark
if you have accidently marked the cow as culled this option may be
used to reverse the situation. It will also reverse any other marking you have carried out.
This is not the recommended method - disease events should be used
instead, but it will work.
If the cow has been culled the code in the top right corner of the record card will display culled and the following prompt line will be displayed:
This animal has been culled - press <RETURN> to continueShould you require to examine the clinical information belonging to this cow entering a <*> will allow the clinical history to be displayed but no new information may be added.
You can record all events that pertain to each cow. This is done by selecting <C> from the prompt line at the bottom of the record card. The system will display any current information and the prompt line :
Edit History Management Note Quit
Edit
This option will display the clinical history and include on
the right of the screen the record number for each line. Select the
line to change, and the various fields of the record will be shown
giving you the opportunity to change any details.
History
The clinical information displayed normally deals with the
current lactation. The history option enables the clinical history for
all lactations to be displayed.
Management
This returns you to the management screen for this cow.
Entering clinical / notes
Most of the clinical history is entered by 'Disease events'. These are
user defined events that can be entered simply and easily but giving a
great deal of freedom of choice.
If you need to change or edit any of the events, use Edit disease file (option 5) from the main herd fertility menu. The screen will display the event categories, giving you the option to change or add events. When first set up, the disease event will have the description 'XX --- No disease event' until new text is entered.
The disease events should be used to enter information on to the record because certain events will change the management record and place the cow on various lists.
Disease events 1 - 150 - No restriction
Disease events 151 - 250 - Disposal event
Disease events 251 - 300 - For future use
Disease events 301 - 350 - Marked
Disease events 351 - 400 - P.D. events, subdivided into:
351 - 360 P.D. positive
361 - 370 P.D. negative
371 - 380 P.D. inconclusive
381 - 400 For future use
Disease events 401 - 500 - Calving
Each event consists of a number and 40 characters of text.
The disease statistics option will break down events for a range of farms into groups of 10 (e.g. 1 - 10, 11 - 20 etc.), so you should bear this in mind when setting up events.
Should you require to add information that is not covered by the existing events, press RETURN at the disease event prompt and you will be allowed to add up to 50 characters of information. This information WILL NOT be used by any of the reports in analysing the herd. Therefore it's much more advisable to set up disease event definitions wherever possible.
Once the information is added the date prompt will reappear allowing you to add more events. To finish enter <E> and this will return you to the prompt line at the bottom of the clinical information.
If the cow has been culled, you will be warned and asked if you want to continue. You should bear in mind that if the event you use is a calving, P.D. result, or marking event, the record card will be updated. To be on the safe side, only use events 1 - 150, or non- coded events with culled cows.
If a cow has been marked, you will be given the option to remove the reason for marking, or to let it continue.
If you want to use a different farm to the one already selected, choose Select a new farm (option 3) from the herd fertility menu. A prompt line will appear:
<D>efault, <H>elp or enter farm ...Enter the farm number you require and press <RETURN>. If you're not sure which farms are on file, you can enter <H>elp. This will display all farms currently set up and ask you to select as appropriate. When herd fertility is selected the default farm will be loaded. If there is no default farm, then farm no. 1 is selected. You may change the farm that is automatically selected when the herd fertility program starts by changing the <D>efault option. When the default farm is changed, this does NOT load it then and there, but only on the next startup.
All reports give the farm name, report name and report date at the top of the screen or page.
To generate a report choose Reports (option 4) from the herd fertility menu. A sub-menu will appear:
Whole herd listing Disposed listing Previous lactations Disease analysis Action lists Analysis Cusum Other reports Return to menu
Whole herd listing
This option lists all the cows in the herd either on the
printer or
the screen. You are given the option of whether to include the
clinical records or not. Only the history for the current lactation is
given. If there are previous lactations for the cow, these will be
summarised, giving calving to conception and inter-service intervals.
Disposed cows
The format of this report is similar to the whole herd listing except
that this report covers disposed cows. The reason for disposal are
given along with the disposal date.
Previous lactations
This is similar in layout to the above reports, except that it covers
previous lactations on the system.
Disease analysis
Disease analysis can be based either on a specific farm or a range of
farms.
Note: There is a graphics package available called 'Graph-in-the-Box' (GIB) which can interface with the herd fertility reports programs. For further details on the cost of this package and the facilities offered by it, please contact BDS. Please note, this package only runs under the MSDOS operating system. For disease analysis report type (a), GIB can only analyse up to 15 farms.
Action lists
This option will display/list all cows requiring action. You
will be asked to select the end date for the list. This is normally
one month but may be longer. The report will also list cows that are
overdue for action. When accessed a selection menu will be displayed. Select the required
options or press return to select all the options:
Herd Analysis
These reports analyse herd performance and consist of the following:
These figures are then reproduced in histogram format with regular ranges this time, constructed so that the target falls in the middle of a range. Ranges are ten days wide, and constitute the x-axis of the histogram. The number of occurrences of calving to first service intervals in each range is plotted on the y-axis, and given up the left-hand side, with percentage figures given up the right-hand side.
In addition, dotted vertical bars give the target period, the average, and two for the standard deviation plotted either side of the average. These are labelled T, A, and D respectively.
Cu-Sum report
When investigating poor conception rates it is important to ascertain
whether any seasonal variations are occurring. Often an annual
conception rate of 45% consists of periods of 30% and 60%. It is
important to identify the poor periods, which may be related to
management changes or periods of poor nutritional status. This can be
investigated by the Cumulative Sum (Cu-Sum) technique. It is
constructed by analysing all serves. Starting at an arbitrary point on
the paper the mark printed by the program moves right one position if
the serve was successful, and left one position if unsuccessful. Thus
the trends are visually obvious. The report also shows the date of the serve and the bull used.
There are two forms of the report:
Note: When the system sorts the serves into date order, the PD positive serves appear before the PD -negative serves, so if there are 20 serves on any day and half them were positive and half of the were -negative, the PD positives will appear first and the PD - negatives afterwards. The graph will therefore first increase by 10 and then decrease by 10.
You are also given the option to print Cu-Sums for each of the bulls used.
Other reports
Marked cows
This report will display or print any marked cows in the herd. The
report will be generated in date order, giving the following
information:
Culled / Disposed Cows
This report will display or print any cows that have been culled or
disposed of. The report is in date order, giving the following
information:
Cows in calf
This report will print or display a list of all cows due to calve, in
date order. Farmers can use this report to estimate likely future milk
yields. The report will give the following information:
Fertility report
This is a brief fertility report. The information given is similar to
that obtained from the analysis report, but is given in a reduced form
which may be preferable.
Cows are included if they have calved between the two dates, and heifers are included if the first service is between the two dates.
Herd summary report
This will printout all the cows in the herd (one cow per line) giving
the details below. You have the option to print the list in either
cow number order or in the order last calved.
If you need to change or edit any of the events, use Edit disease file (option 5) from the main herd fertility menu. The screen will display the event categories, giving you the option to change or add events. When first set up, the disease event will have the description 'XX --- No disease event' until new text is entered.
The disease events should be used to enter information on to the record because certain events will change the management record and place the cow on various lists.
Disease events 1 - 150 - No restriction
Disease events 151 - 250 - Disposal event
Disease events 251 - 300 - For future use
Disease events 301 - 350 - Marked
Disease events 351 - 400 - P.D. events, subdivided into:
351 - 360 P.D. positive
361 - 370 P.D. negative
371 - 380 P.D. inconclusive
381 - 400 For future use
Disease events 401 - 500 - Calving
Each event consists of a number and 40 characters of text.
The disease statistics option will break down events for a range of farms into groups of 10 (e.g. 1 - 10, 11 - 20 etc.), so you should bear this in mind when setting up events.
When you choose to Edit farm information (option 6), a sub-menu will be displayed:
Start a new farm Edit an existing farm Remove a farm Print farm defaults Return to the menu
Start a new farm
This will enable you to enter various parameters pertaining to each
farm you have on the computer. Some of the variables will remain
constant between farms and others may be altered according to the
policy on that particular farm. When selected a screen will appear
filled in with a set of default values. You are then asked for the new
setting for each parameter in turn:
Heat due
This is the number of days after calving that you may
expect cows to come in heat.
Start serving after
Enter the number of days after calving that the
cow is to start being served, i.e. target calving to first serve
interval.
P.D. after
The number of days after the last service that you should
P.D the cow.
First appearance
This is the number of days before calving you wish
to have the cow appear on the action lists. It is advisable that the
number be divisible by 3 i.e. 30, 60, 90, 120 days as this will make
the printout easier to understand.
Overdue for service
The number of days after the last service or
last seen date when the cow will be displayed on the action lists.
Calving to conception
This is used by the analysis program to
display the calving to conception interval for this herd. The date
entered will be used as a target number of days and the information
produced accordingly.
Calving to conception interference level
Once the calving to
conception interval exceeds this period, the cow will be indicated on
the listings.
Heifer to serve
This is the number of days from birth to first
service for a heifer.
Edit an existing farm
If you want to change any of the parameters for a new season then
select this option. You will be asked to enter the farm to edit. The
screen will display the current parameters and you will be asked for
the new values.
Remove a farm
If for some reason you want to delete a farm, use this option. You
will be asked to enter the number of the farm to remove, and the
system will then display the farm name. You will then be asked to
confirm that this is the farm you want to remove.
Print farm defaults
This will print all the farms together with their various targets and
default intervals on the printer.
Return to the menu
This will return you to the menu. You will not be permitted to do so
until at least one farm has been set up.
Change herd fertility date
The system will normally use the current system date (i.e. today's
date). However, as you may be adding information historically, or you
may want to generate reports for future dates, the date used by herd
fertility can be altered. The altered date will not affect any options
other than herd fertility on the system. All the herd fertility
reports will use this date and it will be printed or displayed on the
top of all reports. The date entered is applicable only to the
currently selected farm. If you change farms the date will change to
the date set for the farm you are on.
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