Holstein UK’s newly launched Key Performance Indicators (KPI) reports, provided in conjunction with CIS and CDI, will help dairy farmers identify top and bottom performers within their herds and provide an easily understood ready-reckoner of success, according to CIS executive director Sue Cope.
“The KPI reports are the first product of their type to combine key cow health, productivity, pedigree and fertility data in one easy to use report.
“The new KPI’s will enable dairy farmers to quickly identify those animals and families which are delivering on going improvement in all aspects of herd profitability, as well as weeding out those not currently meeting expectations,” she explained.
“The report is made up of a number of key parts, with the first being the pedigree information, detailing the genetic summary of the current heifer crop, alongside classification information and crucially, an inbreeding coefficient, which will help make more strategic breeding decisions.”
Alongside this will be a production report which will be broken down in to sections, listing herd productivity and somatic cell count scores, nutrition and health monitoring and herd fertility. “All of these areas are vital to herd profitability and being able to quickly identify improvements or issues allows farmers to take much better control of their herds.
“Additionally, the KPI’s will rank herds according to national averages and show trends within the herd from one year to the next and highlight areas for attention,” added Ms Cope.Family Reports Operating in tandem with these KPI’s will be the newly released Family Reports feature, which will make it much simpler for breeders to identify the top performing family lines in their herds and hence make more informed breeding decisions. By combining pedigree data held by Holstein UK and the CDI with productivity information held by CIS, the ‘Family Reports’ enable breeders to quickly identify which family lines are producing the best performing cows on a range of criteria, including yield, fertility and health information.
“Having this crucial information available at the touch of a button will enable breeders to select cows for breeding much more easily and simply and also mark out those cows and heifers which should be culled from the herd in a more systematic manner,” added Ms Cope.
“This key information will also allow breeders to be better informed when consulting their breeding advisers and ensure they make the most appropriate breeding decisions for their herds and their systems.”
Key information such as calving interval, average somatic cell count and average PLI are all shown in the family report to give breeders the most relevant information in one easy to use format. “The aim across the range of new products has been to provide farmers with in-depth information in the simplest possible format to ensure maximum benefit for them,” she explained.
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