Dairy Herd Improvement Associations

1999 Dairy Herd Improvement Herds in Arkansas

Successful dairy producers must have accurate and reliable records to make sound management decisions. The Dairy Herd Improvement (DHI) program provides a comprehensive herd analysis and management report that includes information concerning production, reproduction, genetics, herd health, animal and feed inventory, and finances. The data can be used to improve efficiency of milk production by ...

Associations between nondietary factors and dairy herd performance.

Forty-seven dairy herds (approximately 3,129 lactating cows) from northeast of Spain that were offering exactly the same lactating ration were surveyed to determine the effect of nondietary factors on herd performance. The survey collected information on the profile of the owners (their future intentions, the number of workers, and time devoted to the enterprise), information regarding the anim...

New Zealand Dairy Herd Improvement Database Review Anderson Committee Report

The Value & Use of Dairy Herd Improvement Somatic Cell Count

How Much Does Mastitis Cost You? The only way this question can be answered is to know how much mastitis is in your herd. Mastitis robs you in many ways: reduced milk production; treatment cost; discarded milk; death and premature culling; decreased genetic advancement; and reduced milk quality. Reduced milk production accounts for approximately 70% of the total loss associated with mastitis. U...

Herd and state means for somatic cell count from dairy herd improvement.

To determine the impact of reducing the current legal limit of 750,000 cells/ml for somatic cell count (SCC) in US market milk, data were examined from 539,577 herd test days for Dairy Herd Improvement herds on test during 1996 and 1997. Somatic cell scores for individual cows were converted to SCC. The SCC for each cow was weighted by milk yield and used to compute herd mean on test day. The m...