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Changes in DHI Herd Summary Form provide new information
Dairy Pipeline: June 1997
by
Bennet Cassell
Extension Dairy Scientist, Genetics and Management
Virginia Tech
Changes in DHI Herd Summary Form provide new information. The Herd Summary Form DHI 202 has added several features in recent weeks. The changes, largely good ideas from the Midstates Processing Center which recently merged with DRPC Raleigh to form DRMS or Dairy Records Management Systems, are quite extensive, so this short note will focus on one revised section. The middle of the back page shows the "Identification and Genetic Summary" for each herd. This section now includes information about heifers as well as cows. Every DHI herd has a "heifer" herd associated with it, even if the herd owner opts not to print any heifer reports. The information about heifers comes from reported freshenings into the herd. The ID and Genetic section of the 202 now summarizes the number of animals under one year of age, between 12 and 30 months of age, and over 30 months of age. For many herds, the totals will include heifers lost during rearing, sold, and so forth because no effort has ever been made to report such events through DHI. The "over 30" section is where such animals will eventually appear. Herds on PCDART or Heifer Management commonly update heifer herd records for deaths and sales. Technicians using Technician PCDART or TPE can make such changes as well. All DHI members are encouraged to update their heifer records and to use the information in herd management. One of the more useful additions to the ID and Genetic section is a count of animals in each age group with PTA$ or Parent Average (PA) $ values. On the preceding version of the 202, an average PTA$ value was listed for three groups of cows (no heifers), but there was no way to know if only a few animals in each group had genetic evaluations. Herds with progressive sire selection programs will be able to track genetic trend through higher PTA's for sires of younger animals in the herd. Take time this month to study the DHI 202. You should find many of the new herd summary items to be useful.