Measurement to Management

Transcription

1 Measurement to Management Scout Newsletter Winter 2015 Table of Contents New Enhancements for Scout... 1 Customize a Scout Report Using Report Changer... 2 Vet List... 3 Monitoring Reproductive Performance... 4 Meet the Agricultural Managemenet Resources Group... 5 New Enhancements for Scout Scout has undergone some very exciting changes! As you put in your updates, you will find that Scout has a new look. All of the features that you have come to use and depend on are still available but you now have even more features available. The first thing you will notice is that the main tool bar has changed. Old Scout Toolbar Keyboard Shortcuts for Scout... 5 Using DHIA Milk Samples for Pregnancy Determination... 6 Making a Daily Backup in Scout Scout daily backups on a pen drive are one of the easiest and most important things you can do to protect yourself from data loss. Everyone will experience computer failure at some point and the recovery from that can be effortless with a daily backup. Test day backups have your current cow information but they are missing archive files and don t contain any of your customized changes such as vet parameters and report changes. If you aren t making a daily backup and need help please call! New Scout Toolbar All the tools that you have been using are still available: printer, calendar to change the day, and daily backups. New to the tool bar are buttons to open reports as and styles. Open Report and Save Report give us the ability to look at and save reports in different formats. This can be helpful for ing and sharing data. Styles let us change the color of Scout. If you change the Style, please close and reopen Scout after the change! 730 Warren Road Ithaca, New York Ph: Fax:

2 Customize a Scout Report Using Report Changer We can customize Scout in many ways to help make management decisions easier. Report changer is a great tool that can tailor reports to fit your farm s needs. The following report is a Due Dry list. This Due Dry list is usable for the farm; it has the cows that need to be dried off, but it could be made into a much better management tool by using the report changer. There are columns of information that probably are not being used, and others, such as milk production, which would be beneficial to add to the list. We can change this report to make it easier and more effective by using report changer. To open Report Changer go to File Alter and then select option 3- Report Changer. When prompted, select the list you would like to change. In this example, we are changing the DUEDRY list Warren Road Ithaca, New York Ph: Fax:

3 The items that are currently in the report will be displayed along with options for sorting and formating. Sorting and formating can be used to enhance the report. By clicking the Add or Remove boxes, we can adjust what columns of information are on the report. The order of the columns can be changed by dragging and dropping them to a new location. We removed SID, MGSID, DDAT and BNAME and added in MILK and PMILK. Switches and sorts can also be used to help change the appearance and order of the lists. When you are finished making changes, click on Done and click Yes to save your changes. When we re-run the Due Dry report we will see our changes. The report still shows the cows that need to be dried off, but now gives other information that can help you dry off cows at the optimal time. Vet List Setting up a vet list in Scout is an easy way to decrease prep time for vet check and ensure that you are checking all the cows that need to be seen by the vet. Vet list constraints are found under File Alter, and choose option 2- Herd Parameters. There are 6 different parameters that control who we see on the cow vet list, and 1 additional parameter for heifers. FRSH - Used if you check cows shortly after freshening. Enter the days in milk for this check. If you do not check all cows post fresh, enter a zero. PREG - Enter the days since breeding for cows to be pregnancy checked. REPG - Use if you do a second pregnancy check, enter the days since breeding for the second check. If you do not do a second check, enter a zero. MSHT - Brings up missed cows who were bred, checked open, and have had no recorded heat since then, or cows that have had missed heats. If you want to check missed cows, enter the number of days since heat, or if you do not want to check missed animals, enter a zero. NOHT - Brings up cows that are over a certain number of days in milk with no recorded heat. If you want to check these cows, enter the day in milk, or if you do not want to use this parameter, enter a zero. PROB - Brings up cows that are over a certain number of days open and not pregnant. Enter the minimum days open if you want to use the parameter, or enter a zero if you do not want to use it. 730 Warren Road Ithaca, New York Ph: Fax:

4 To open the vet list, go to Health Vet List (Cows). Report changer can be used to customized the data columns seen by going to File Alter and then selecting option 3- Report Changer and choosing VLIST - List of Adults for Vet Palpitation. Monitoring Reproductive Performance Often farms see different breeding technicians come to the farm and are using multiple AI programs in addition to visual signs to get the cows bred. Tracking who is breeding the cows and what type of breeding services are used is the first step to determining effectiveness. To enter or change your breeding technicians or codes, go to File Alter and choose option E-Breeding and Technicians. Double-click on the technician or breeding code to add, change,or delete them. To view breeding summary reports, go to Rpr+Cul and choose either Conception by Code or Conception by Tech. We can now see how many animals are bred by each tech, each breeding code, and the service per conception (SPC) for each Warren Road Ithaca, New York Ph: Fax:

5 The Conception by Code and Conception by Tech Reports have a column labeled 95% CI, or confidence interval. The 95% confidence interval can be used to see if there is a statistical difference between breeders or codes. In the above example, the percent conception for Timed AI is 45%, and the percent conception for standing heat is 62%. Visually, these two numbers look different, but when we look at the 95% confidence interval we see that they overlap: Timed AI is 31-60% and Standing is 50-73%. We can say that the next timed AI breeding conception rate will be between 31-60% and we will be correct 95% of the time. Standing heat conceptions will be between 50-73% and we will be correct 95% of the time. As we have more breedings for each code or tech, the 95% CI range will get smaller because we have more information to predict the future. Statically there is no difference in conception between Timed AI and Standing heats in this example. Meet the Agricultural Management Resources Group We are very excited to introduce several new team members to our AMR department. We thought we would take a moment and not only introduce the new members, but also reintroduce the entire support team. John Gloss is the AMR team leader. He helps organize the group and also fills in among hardware and software support as needed. John has worked for Dairy One for 24 years, first starting as a technician and then as a market manager. He has been supporting software for 21 years from the Ithaca office. Dave Glass is a member of the software support team. He works with Dairy Comp, Scout, and Fields and Crops. Dave has worked for Dairy one for 32 years first as a tester, then as a market manager, and has spent the last 17 years supporting software from his western New York location. Matt Newman is a member of our hardware team. Matt splits his time between on farm installations of networks and the Ithaca office, setting up hardware and taking hardware support calls. Matt has been a part of the team for 6 years. Dan Smith is a member of the software support team. He works with Scout and Dairy Comp. Dan has worked for Dairy One for 35 years, starting his career testing, and then becoming a county manager. Dan has spent the last 20 years supporting software from our State College, Pennsylvania office. Doug Benedict is a member of our hardware team and spends most of his time out on farms doing network, computer and camera installs. Doug has been part of Dairy One and the AMR team for 3 years, based out of the Ithaca office. Judy Moody is a member of the software team. She supports Dairy Comp and Scout, and also handles software orders and invoicing. Judy has been a member of the AMR team for 3 years, working out of the Ithaca office. Brent Croscut started at Dairy One doing Feedwatch support just over a year ago. For the last several months, he has been working with Dairy Comp and Scout, and now is supporting all 3 programs. Brent is based in New Hampshire. Heather Sanders joined the AMR group this summer as part of the software team. She will be supporting Dairy Comp and Scout, and will be traveling to farms for install visits. Heather in based in western New York. Dr. John Lounsbury is a full-time member of the Feedwatch support group. He splits his time between the office and doing Feedwatch installations on farm. John has been working with Feedwatch and Dairy One for 1 year from the Ithaca office. Alex Frisbee recently joined the AMR hardware team. Alex works with the hardware team doing network, computer, and camera system installs. Jyll Strothmann splits her time between administration support and graphic design. Jyll helps with design and layout for the AMR newsletters. Jyll has been a part of Dairy One team for 12 years. Kayla Turcsik joined the AMR team and Dairy One this past summer as the receptionist. Kayla will greet you both on the phone and in the office. Keyboard shortcuts for Scout F2 - Displays cowcard F9 - Brings up search box to look for cow in report P - Print Report M - Print multiple copies for report (prompts for number) S - Sort (prompts for sort item) 730 Warren Road Ithaca, New York Ph: Fax:

6 Using DHIA Milk Samples for Pregnancy Determination Farms have more options than ever when it comes to pregnancy testing: traditional vet checks, blood pregnancy tests, and even milk pregnancy tests. Using your DHIA milk samples to also test for pregnancy is a great option for many farms. It saves time, does not require additional cow handling, and is a convenient way to optimize your regular DHIA test day. How does it work? Herds who have experienced the most successful program of milk pregnancy testing are those that are on a consistent, once-permonth DHIA program. Each month, we identify a range of cows eligible for pregnancy testing. Our technicians create that list on their computers with the software used on test day, identifying cows that are eligible to be submitted (that have not already been diagnosed pregnant or open). Then the farm can decide if any or all of those samples get the additional pregnancy test when they arrive at our Ithaca, New York laboratory. What cows are eligible for the pregnancy test? Typically, we have seen a range of cows between 35 and 66 days post breeding identified for first submission for pregnancy testing. However, IDEXX, the manufacturer of this milk pregnancy technology, has recently lowered the days after breeding to 28. So, we anticipate the lab will begin seeing a greater number of samples that are closer to the new IDEXX 28 day post breeding claim. Accuracy with this new claim remains over 98% detection of pregnant cows when compared to palpation or ultrasound. Changes in the lab We have made 2 significant changes to our program to better serve our members, offering both improved convenience and cost savings. 1. Samples submitted following label recommendations of a minimum of 60 days post calving and 28 days post breeding with a Recheck result will not be charged to the member. 2. We now offer milk pregnancy kits that can be used to submit strip samples for pregnancy analysis anytime between test days. The kits contain 50 per-preserved vials, submission forms, shipping materials, and shipping labels. All submissions of 10 or more cows using this kit will have free shipping. Using the kits: Identify the cows to check Strip milk into a labeled vial Fill out the submission form Place in the shipper Apply the label and ship All results will be ed back within 1-2 days of samples arriving in our lab. Milk pregnancy testing for pregnancy confirmation Milk pregnancy testing is also a convenient way to confirm that cows remain pregnant after early diagnosis. Keep in mind that pregnancy losses are normal, and as seen in Figure 1, may approach 25% from day 28 of pregnancy to calving. Because milk pregnancy testing is so simple and convenient, it can add a great deal of flexibility to how you test and confirm pregnancies within your current breeding program. Milk pregnancy and Johnes testing Dairy One also offers the option of a late-lactation Johnes disease screening before cows are dried off. We can couple this with one final pregnancy confirmation. Both tests use the same single DHIA milk sample that is taken on test day, or a strip sample taken anytime using one of our test kits. Knowing the Johnes status helps manage that disease when cows calve the next time. Dairy One strives to offer you as much useful information as possible to best complement your reproductive program. For more information, please our Animal Health Diagnostics laboratory at ahd@dairyone.com, or call us at Figure 1. Pregnancy Loss in Lactating Cows Warren Road Ithaca, New York Ph: Fax: