Dairy herd management and research

Management: InterHerd+ is used by farmers and advisers to manage and analyse dairy herd production, fertility and health. Extensive functionality allows detailed recording and analysis of

• Animal registration and pedigree.
• Fertility/production/health event recording.
• Animal movement between/within farms, markets, abattoirs.
• Supplies, drug use etc.
• Disease analysis (Johne’s tracker, SCCs, lameness, mastitis).
• Weight, mobility.

Research: InterHerd+ is the basis of many research activities

• Established users of InterHerd+ include the Centre for Dairy Research (CEDAR) at the University of Reading.
• Benchmarking: InterHerd+ is used for annual production of diary key performance indicators based on 500 UK dairy herds.

These studies provide targets and trends widely used by the UK dairy industry.

National Identification & Registration (I&R) systems for animal traceability:

InterTrace+ handles large volumes of livestock data for purposes ranging from animal registration to movement and traceability. InterTrace+ is the basis of national livestock databases in a number of countries

• Malta – Developed since 2004 with the national veterinary services, InterTrace+ manages official animal regulation.
• Multi-species livestock identification and registration, full traceability of animals and products.
• disease surveillance, vaccination and control.
• hygiene, welfare and environmental compliance.
• dog registration, equine passports.

• Kosovo – Since 2010, linking government with private veterinary services that register new animals and implement many of the vaccination and other statutory and support activities to livestock keepers. Over 700,000 livestock (cattle/sheep/goats/pigs) on over 50,000 livestock premises.
• Rwanda –A national cattle database containing over 1 million animals registered on over 500,000 premises was established in 2021 with most data entered by field workers using mobile devices.

Support to technical and livestock extension services:

The importing of data from milk recording organisations gives technical advisers a common platform for analysis of individual or multiple herds.

• Individual or multiple farm assessments of production, fertility and health, highlighting strengths and weaknesses in performance.
• Comparison of performance across herds in a vet practice, client base, milk pool, national herd.
• Detailed disease analyses and management:
• Johne’s Tracker, characterising and managing Johne’s disease control in UK dairy herds.
•  Herd Companion: Management of Somatic Cell Counts.
• Smallholder extension services: In countries with small numbers of animals per household, animals can be grouped. and action lists / reports generated for use by extension workers responsible for a locality.

Breed society Herdbooks:

InterTrace+ has been used as the official Herd Book for the Island of Guernsey Breed Society since 2003. This includes:
A complete registry of all pedigree animals.

• Registration of calves.
• Authentication of sires from service records in accordance with society rules.
• Preparation of Registration Certificates.
• Linear classifications.
• Submission of production data to the genetic analysis centre.
• Receipt of individual animal evaluations and predicted transmission abilities (PTAs).

In Colombia, The National Union of Cattle Breeding Associations (UNAGA) has used InterTrace+ as the database for herdbooks of member breed associations since 2000. This involves maintaining the genealogical records of over 100,000 animals covering the Normando, Jersey, Brown Swiss, Ayrshire, Simmental, and Criollo associations, as well as other official breed herdbooks in Latin America.

Livestock and veterinary research:

The extensive analytical capability of interHerd+ makes it an ideal means for researchers to analyse livestock performance and health.

• Research – UK: The Centre for Dairy Research (CEDAR) at the University of Reading has used InterHerd+ for many years on the unites large commercial dairy herd both for herd management and research purposes with highly detailed records going back to the 1980s.
• Sector analysis – UK: The automatic downloading of data from milk recording organisations combined with the ability to hold multiple herds in the same database, makes InterHerd+ ideal for research analysis and the development of appropriate reports for farmers and their technical advisers:
  • Benchmarking production, fertility and health since 2010: Annual studies of a cross section of 500 commercial dairy herd. Disease studies include.
  • Mastitis and Somatic Cells (NMR Herd Companion): InterHerd+ was the key analytical tool used for analysis of somatic cell counts that led to the NMR Herd Companion program.
  • Johne’s Disease (Johne’s Tracker): Analysis of Johne’s disease across 250 herds in an InterHerd+ database was the basis of the research that led to development of the Johne’s Tracker methodology for controlling the disease.