Dairy Herd Management Program.

The Dairy Herd Management Program has served both dairymen and veterinarians very well over the past several years under a variety of conditions. A number of veterinarians have used the Dairy Herd Management Program to provide computerized dairy record service to their clients. In many of these situations, clients have decided to purchase a computer system of their own after discovering the value of having improved, computerized dairy records. The Dairy Herd Management Program is able to efficiently handle data from large dairies without disrupting daily record-keeping routines. With this data, useful reports are generated that measure actual reproductive performance against target levels or goals. Because the Dairy Herd Management Program focuses on specific time intervals and includes data from culled cows, trends or drops in reproductive performance are more quickly detected so that corrective action can be taken to minimize economic losses. The Dairy Herd Management Program's strong points include batch entry of data, an inclusive yet flexible Vet Check List of cows to be examined, and a detailed, comprehensive Reproductive Summary report. Its major weakness is the lack of a custom report generator for specific situations or conditions. This problem is being addressed in the new version. With the improvements scheduled for the new version, the Dairy Herd Management Program should be able to meet all of the needs of dairy managers and veterinarians alike, as well as become a powerful tool for conducting dairy reproductive field trials and research.