MY HEALTHY HERD:

This is a web based health planning program that is being developed all the time. It is more suitable for all areas of farming through dairy, beef and sheep. It can be used to just carry out a biosecurity assessment or can be accessed for a full health plan review. It is a working document that changes all the time as information is updated. It asks simple questions and calculates the risks from the answers and provides some suggestions for improvement. You can use it to set up plans of action for various problems as well as recording any laboratory results. From the data used in the program we can establish where the main losses are occurring on your farm and use that to implement action plans to improve the situation. We can also produce a simple, easy to use farm assurance health plan for any of you that need these for inspections. The system can be accessed by both you and us via a password system to maintain confidentiality. If you are interested in finding out more about this please ring and again we will happily demonstrate the program.

INTERHERD:

Interherd is a cattle production and health recording system which is suitable for use in dairy, beef and mixed enterprises. It provides a secure storage of comprehensive production and health records for each animal; a day-to-day action lists for the efficient management of herds; a longer-term analysis of herd performance to identify problems and their causes; a financial analysis of livestock and other enterprises, with forward budgets; and it has a user-friendly operation under Windows 95®, Windows NT® or Windows XP®.

Program features:
Event definitions
A basic set of event definitions (calving, service, drying-off etc.) is provided as a default. However, users can add definitions for any other events required, including numerical recordings such as measurements of blood parameters, cases of pneumonia etc. Events can be recorded either as having taken place or scheduled to take place in the future, and these scheduled events will appear in action lists.
Event definitions can include scheduled follow-up events so that when an event is recorded as having taken place, a sequence of follow-up events will be scheduled. For example, the "service" event definition can specify that whenever a "service" event is recorded, a "check oestrus" event will automatically be scheduled for 21 days later. Events can have different results, associated with different sequences of follow-up events. For example, a pregnancy diagnosis could have three different results: positive, negative or doubtful. A positive result could produce scheduled "drying-off" and "calving" events at 222 and 282 days (from conception). A negative result could a scheduled "check oestrus" event and a doubtful result a scheduled "pregnancy diagnosis" event.

Farm Budgets
Costs and drug usage can be recorded for each event. This allows analysis of costs for each animal, and accounting for usage of drugs, semen and other inputs at individual animal or herd level. Stock balances can be maintained with re-ordering at pre-defined levels. It also allows the automated preparation of itemised invoices for farmers when the system is being used by service providers. If required, default costs and drug usage can be defined for each event result. This reduces the time needed for data recording, but the default values can be over-ridden in any particular case.
The program can import data from files provided by milk recording services, and on-farm recording equipment such as milking parlours, automatic feeders and weighing machines. The emergence of international standards for livestock data interchange will greatly facilitate this process. While the capabilities of the system are very wide to cover all cattle production systems, it is important to emphasise that the system can be configured to show only the information and facilities relevant to a particular application. Moreover, it can operate with a bare minimum of data, even though it has the capabilities to store almost any data that might be required in specialist applications. The system is very flexible, but access to configuration options is controlled. Users identify themselves by name and password, and the system manager can specify the facilities available to each user. One data file can contain data from any number of herds. Therefore reporting and analysis can refer either to a single herd, or any selection of herds that the user specifies. Groups and lots of animals can be defined within herds, so analysis and reports can also be restricted to specified lots or groups.

For dairy farmers that milk record:
We can also access all your records whether you use NMR or CIS as long as you give your permission for us to download the data. This can be done through Herd Companion (which is the information management system provided online by NMR for customers benefiting from NMR and NML services. It allows farmers and their advisors to view fertility, health, milk quality and disease information online), Interherd or the CIS website itself.

GENERALLY:

If you are having any problems relating to any aspect of your farming system as long as you are happy for us to have access to your records we can look and advise any time without always visiting the farm or tying your time up on the farm. If you are not linked to a recording system that we can access you can use our bureau system where you record any events and give us a duplicate copy of them. We can from this input the data into Interherd, browse and analyse that data and provide yourselves with printouts relating to the information as required. This system can be used for anything, from just cell count information, through fertility, mastitis and lameness information, to pneumonia, scour and other calf disease records, and right through to full medicine records.
If you have any questions relating to any of these services please ring to ask one of the farm vets and we will be more than happy to demonstrate the programmes available. The costs involved will be relative to the amount of work and time the data analysis involves but is usually negligible relative to the results you should get out of it.

BULK MILK LIVER FLUKE TESTING:

Recently, all dairy farmers in the practice have been invited to submit a bulk milk sample to be tested for liver fluke. So far, I have received results from fourteen farms. Of these, six are negative, two low positive and the remainder are strongly positive. Unfortunately, there is not a flukicide licensed for use in lactating dairy cows, so control strategies must revolve around controlling access to bogging ground where infection is likely to be acquired, and, where necessary, treating heifers before they enter the dairy herd and cows at the start of the dry period.