DHI Notes...

September 07 | PCDART use grows across the state | Bennet Cassell

State DHI averages for important management areas in August 2007

Management area	Aug 2007	Change from last year
Rolling herd average milk	21671	-93 lbs.
Peak yield in heifers	74	-2 lbs.
Days to first breeding	95	-1 days
Days open	165	-1 days
Net Merit of proven service sires	299	$2
Herd turnover less dairy sales (%)	29%	0%
Monthly average SCS	3.2	-0.2
Feed cost per cwt. (milking cows)	$5.79	$0.17
Milk blend price	$19.79	$6.60

Some new technologies can be tested on the farm without much investment of time, money, or commitment. Sexed semen or estrus synchronization are examples. Producers can give these ideas a try for a while or only on a few animals. PCDART has never been that kind of technology. You don’t put part of the herd on PCDART and leave the rest on standard DHI. When first introduced about 20 years ago, computers were novel devices and few producers had much experience with them. PCDART required (and still does) that computers communicate with each other, which was tough with floppy discs, modems, and rural phone systems. Producer had to accept responsibility for some of the record keeping that once was performed by the DHI technician. Finally, producers had to learn to use the program before PCDART could provide any benefits. Some of these issues are still impediments to adoption for some, but today PCDART is widely used in Virginia. The program retains a newness through constant updates and increased power of home computers. The most frequent reason NOT to use PCDART years ago was “my herd is too small.” Today, the average Virginia herd is larger – but minimum herd size for PCDART to be useful has gone DOWN through the years. To my way of thinking, the main advantages of PCDART are the following:

• Electronic records can be sorted, sifted, and arranged in all kinds of ways, and are MUCH more useful than printed reports alone.
• Important information, particularly health and reproductive records change between test days. PCDART allows such records to be updated daily.
• Dairy herd management is increasingly reliant on consultant input. Computer based herd records lend themselves well to use by consultants.
• Computers are almost infinitely flexible and can be reprogrammed to use the latest management ideas available for dairy herd management.

PCDART users should always update their programs when new versions are released. It really helps to cash out that old computer every five years or so. The old one may “work” but it won’t really do the job the program is capable of doing with modern hardware.

Bennet Cassell
Genetics and Management