HERDMANCoop: SOFTWARE FOR HERD PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT
IN DAIRY ANIMALS UNDER COOPERATIVE SET UP
Developed by
Infovet, Mumbai
Email: herdmancom@hotmail.com
Cooeprative movement has been the backbone for dairy industry in many countries that
contributes as high as 80-85% of the total milk procured and processed. The movement
enabled small animal holders to come together and develop the dairy industry. The basic
unit is the primary dairy society in a village that covers around 500 – 1000 animals
which in turn is federated into a block level or a district level dairy cooperative
federation. The block-level or district-level federation provides milk collection as well
as veterinary input services.
With globalization and the WTO regime, the global milk market is opening for almost all
the players. There is now additional emphasis on quality of milk. If the farmers under
cooperatives are to survive, it will be necessary to cut the cost of milk production by
optimizing the production and reproduction and at the same time avoid usage of
antibiotics, hormones and drugs to minimize residues in milk. This would be possible if
the entire set up is fine-tuned to a rational animal health and productivity enhancement
plan. The new strategy calls for radical change in the way the animal health personnel
provide services to the farmers. The new approach that has been tested by many
developed countries constitutes: (1) animals are continuously monitored by maintaining
data of individual animals and analysis on primary dairy society / village –basis; (2) the
common-source problems, such as, nutritional deficiencies, sub-clinical infections and
sub fertility are predicted, investigated and corrective measures are taken to resolve the
primary causal factors; (3) problems are predicted based on calculation of
epidemiological rates well before any clinical signs or damage is done. The system relies
more on correction of management, husbandry, feed, minerals, etc., rather than only use
of drugs or hormones; (4) the dairy management activities are not farmer-perceived but
predicted based on the records which enables identification of problems at the earliest
and also encourages participation of farmers in health maintenance.
The central issue is maintaining individual animal data in a format that can be
entered, compiled, transferred to the incharge veterinarians who can analyze and
suggest corrective measures. This approach is also called ‘herd approach’. With
introduction of computers it has become easy to organize and analyze the data with
the help of software HERDMANCoop.
Major Characteristics:
The software is window-based and provides the computing and analysis strength
of Visual Basic and Access/MS-SQL. It is icon / menu driven hence even a moderately
literate farmer can operate the software without any difficulty.
 The software maintains life-time records of animals in the farm.
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 It is available in all Indian regional languages and can be made available in other
international languages.
 The records of cows and buffaloes can be maintained simultaneously but the data is
automatically analyzed separately.
 The records of all categories of animals, such as, calves, heifers, adults, breeding
bulls and working bullocks can be maintained.
 The records of culled, sold or died animals maintained in archive files that can be
retrieved easily to analyze the data.
Modules of ‘Herdmancoop’:
Core module for primary dairy society: This is the basic module meant for society-level
or village-level database. It provides for data entry facility for diary operation in a very
simplified form. It also generates reports that are useful for administrative as well as
performance appraisal.
Data entry:
Data
entry
Form|:
Entire data can be entered
from a single form. The
data operator need open
the main program or
understand its intricacies.
Thus, even a moderately
computer literate person
in a village would be able
to handle data entries. In
order to build up the
source data some entries
are to be made only once.
For example, names of the
owners, herd and lot
details , source details are
to be filled at the time of
installation. New animal
and owner data can be
built up as the entries are
made.
General Details: The database of all the dairy animals can be prepared through this
form
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Heat and insemination entry: Through this form the estrus entries of animals can be
made. The software enables maintaining real time data of all the heats and insemination
in the animals. This also enables the inventory management of semen straw utilization
that can be transferred to the Artificial Insemination Center. Bull performance in village
can also be automatically calculated.
This form also enables pregnancy diagnosis entries of all the animals that have not
returned after insemination. The confirmation of pregnancy (pregnancy diagnosis II)
data can also be entered for each animal.
Calving entries: This form enables entries of all the calving in the dairy society. The
entry automatically generates a registry for the calf born. The progeny data in respect of
the bull used for insemination is also built up automatically. The new ID number
registered for the calf transfer the data of dam as well as sire automatically. Data such as
weight gain till heifer stage can be managed in the calf module.
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Milk entry:
Through this form milk entries in respect of each animal can be maintained. In order to
build up a true data it is important that actual milk yield either weekly or every 10 ten
days be recorded for each animal. Once the entry is made, it automatically calculates the
average milk yield for the other days. The information on milk yield in respect of the
flagged animals can be automatically transferred to the progeny database.
Treatment data:
The software enables maintaining the database of all the sickness and treatment carried
out in respect of each animal. Mass treatment, such as, vaccination, deworming, etc., can
be updated automatically. Most of the information is already inbuilt in the combo box
and the data operator has to only select the needed information for entering in the form.
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Action List
Alarm List
This provides the daily action
schedule for the veterinary staff.
Based on the default values and the
individual
animal
data
HERDMANcoop generates the list of
animals scheduled for various
veterinary activities, such as, check
for heat, check for pregnancy I,
check for pregnancy II, animals for
drying off, animals for steaming up,
animals due for calving, due for
vaccination, due for deworming
and due for insurance. The herd
operation
therefore
becomes
predictive.
HERDMANcoop also generates list
of animals currently in the herd/lot
that are not performing optimum as
per the default parameters. This
generates alarm list of heifers that
have not shown heat, calved
animals that have not shown first
heat,
animals
with
fertility
problems, animals not achieving
peak yield in the desired period,
animals with low milk yield per
lactation day, animals with longer
open days, animals with lower 100days production, animals with a
longer inter-calving interval.
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Reports
Herd Indices
Individual animal records:
HERDMANcoop is capable of
generating several reports that are
either for the current date or for the
desired period. Reports such as,
administrative, milk production,
breeding, due for calving, salvage,
semen utilization, heifer, calves,
etc., can be generated with a mouse
click. Every report also provides a
summary report of the herd or lot.
The reports can also be generated
on electronic copying devise such
as floppy and this can be
downloaded by the administrator.
This module is provided to the
veterinarian administrator who can
generate herd performance indices
for the desired period.
These
indices are both production and
reproduction indices. The indices
are calculated as mean + standard
deviation) for each lot or herd.
This is the unique
feature
of
this software. Herd indices, such
as, average milk yield per lactation
day, average yield per lactating
animal, peak yield, days to peak
yield, average lactation length, etc.,
can
be
calculated.
The
reproduction-related indices that
can be calculated are: mean age for
first heat in heifers, mean age of
calving in heifers, mean days after
calving to first heat, mean
conception rate, mean A.I. per
conception, etc.
The software maintains all possible
records of individual animals, such
as, administrative details, parent,
breeding, production, etc. Such a
data is necessary to select good
productive animals for further
breeding. Herdman is the first step
towards creation of a database of
productive animals.
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HERDMANcoop for Veterinarians: Since a veterinarian is responsible for many herds
or village cooperative societies, a separate version enables the veterinarian to manage the
data of number of societies. The veterinarian can generate action list, alarm list, reports
and herd indices for each herd separately. An analysis module is also provided that
enables the veterinarians to calculate different performance indices and generate lists of
animals in different herds that are not performing as per the target.
The veterinarians can generate epidemiological information on all disease and
management aspects.
HERDMANcoop for Chief Veterinarian: It is possible to integrate or provide data
merging facility with any window-based software currently used for other purposes, such
as, progeny testing, epidemiological mapping, GIS- or Info map-based data modules.
This module has all the features given for the veterinarian version except that for the
administrator instead of individual animal, the herd or block-level data is transferred.
The administrator can generate reports for all the blocks, societies or veterinarians for
comparing the performance and for identifying problem areas.
The HERDMANcoop is a total solution for creating animal data grid, herd
management for enhancement of productivity and enhancing the fertility.
HERDMANcoop is available in all Indian regional languages. It can also be made
available in any international language.
For further details and enquiries please contact:
Email: herdmancom@hotmail.com
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